Hannibal Heyes Goes to New York
by Helen West
Summary: This story follows Not Again! It is set about 2 years after the pilot. This is primarily a Heyes story, but the Kid gets some really important scenes.
1. Chapter 1

This story follows _Not Again!_ I appreciate all your great support and questions. Kid fans, I confess – this is a Heyes story. But hang in there – the Kid gets some of the best scenes. Cat Christy is back, too. This story is, again, dedicated with love and gratitude to the teachers out there.

I want to repeat my important disclaimer about aphasia, which is what Heyes suffers from here after a gunshot wound to the head suffered in the previous story, Not Again! I have invented symptoms and treatments to suit my own dramatic needs - nothing medical in this story is accurate. This is a very real and serious ailment and I have no intention of making light of it in any way. Also, of course, I apologize for borrowing these characters that other people invented and I have merely enjoyed.

At 10:00 on a cold, bright October morning, Heyes went downstairs at Christy's Hotel in Louisville, Colorado. The retired outlaw was all packed and dressed in his best brown suit. He was carrying his heaviest coat and his carpet bag for the train ride east to New York City. Curry was carrying Heyes' crammed saddle bags. Kid didn't have to look hard to see that his partner was nervous, with his jaw tight and his eyes bright with anxiety. The Kid didn't blame him for being worried. Heyes was without a gun on his hip, without his silver tongue, without his partner, and headed for a place that was utterly strange to him.

Heyes smiled more and more widely, his dimple deepening as he shook hands with the bar tender and piano player and kissed all the saloon girls good-bye. Thin, gray, Dr. Grauer was there, too, to shake Joshua Smith's hand and wish his prize patient well. It was a happy surprise for Heyes, as shy as he had become since the shooting, to realize how much all of these people cared about him, and how much he really cared about them. They were all so enthusiastic in wishing him luck and saying how much they would miss him. They actually liked him! It just hadn't occurred to Heyes before that moment that anyone at Christy's place, other than the Kid and Cat and Peggy, and the Doctor down the street, had really paid him any mind. This was the largest group of people outside of the outlaw trade who had ever liked, or even known, Heyes since he had been a boy at school. Some of the saloon girls even tried to get back in line to get a second kiss – Heyes' charms were not lost on them! Heyes knew that he would, indeed, miss all of these new friends. He wished that he could tell them how much they meant to him, and most of all that he could properly thank them. After all, they had all given up $20,000.00 to keep him free, when he couldn't even speak to them. He was already thinking about when he could come back and see them all. Maybe at Christmas?

As he stood by the door, ready to button up his coat and pick up his bags, Heyes took Cat's hand to say his silent good-bye. But the slender golden-haired young woman threw her arms around his neck and gave him a proper hug and kiss. "Come back soon, Joshua! Don't you dare stay too long in New York! Work hard, but come back! Don't wait to get your speech perfect. Just come back as soon as you can! We're going to miss you so much every day! Kid and I need you – just you come back soon!" Heyes nodded and nodded in answer to her repeated pleas. He blinked hard and wished more that he could properly thank her. He would absolutely not have been alive, and free, without her help.

Peggy the saloon girl who was closest to Heyes was there, too. He held the quiet little woman in his arms and kissed her thoroughly. As he let her go, she grabbed onto his coat and he kissed her again. And he turned at last to go, he put a little piece of folded up paper into her hand. As Heyes went out the hotel's front door, Peggy opened the paper that Joshua had given her. She saw that it said "2-1=1". She showed it to Cat in puzzlement. Cat said "I guess that's closest he can get to good-bye, Peggy." Peggy snuffled into her handkerchief and ran up the hotel steps. The relationship between Peggy and Heyes had never been more than physical. She knew well that they had no future together. But she did like him!

As Heyes and the Kid and Dr. Leutze started off, Heyes looked back at Cat, who came out the door to watch him off. She stood just outside the door shivering in the mountain autumn air. He gave her a broad wink and a grin. She wiped her eyes and waved her handkerchief at the departing former outlaw. Maybe he really would be alright, as she had told the Kid that he would.

Heyes and the Kid walked slowly and thoughtfully to the Louisville station with Dr. Leutze. Heyes had his old saddle bags over his shoulder and the infamously lost carpet bag in his hand, but he had no reason to bring his rifle or his saddle or his bedroll. This was going to be a different trip than any he had ever taken. There would be no riding a horse on the other side, no camping out in the desert, no small western town, no swinging doors, no dusty hotel rooms. His partner wouldn't be at his side. But Dr. Leutze would be there; that was what counted. The only man on the North American continent who had any real chance of helping Heyes would be taking him to where he could get well again.

The three men stood awkwardly as they waited for the train, Leutze being careful to leave the two partners some space as they awaited a long parting for the first time many years. As the train east pulled in, right on time, Curry shook Dr. Leutze's hand and wished him luck. Heyes shook the Kid's hand awkwardly. There wouldn't have been words for what he needed to say even if he could have spoken perfectly.

"Joshua, you're gonna be just fine. You know that!" said Curry, his voice hoarse. "You'll be back here in no time, talking a blue streak just like you used to. Maybe I won't complain about it like I used to. I want to hear all about what you see when you get past the Mississippi!" Heyes nodded and tried to smile, but the Kid saw the scared look in his partner's brown eyes. Heyes mimed writing and looked at the Kid, who nodded and said, "Sure, I'll write to you! When you can, you just got to write back!" Heyes grabbed the Kid in a hard bear hug – no need for a bounty hunter to make him do it.

As the two men stepped apart and the train pulled in, Heyes looked anxiously at the Kid. It had finally penetrated the silent man's mind – he was really leaving not only the Kid, but the West that was all he had ever known. He really couldn't speak, for practical purposes, at all. His two words failed him when he tried to say them to anyone but the Doctor and the Kid. Good-bye and thank-you, the words he needed most right now, were not in his vocabulary even to the Kid. Heyes really was gambling everything on a stranger who didn't even know who he was. The Kid wished he could do something more helpful than to clap his frightened partner on the back and then wave good-bye.

As the train pulled away, the Kid found it unutterably strange to stand there all alone in the cold mountain autumn. He trudged back to Christy's place, looking down and scuffing his boots in the dust of the unpaved street. He didn't look up to see the magnificent snow-capped mountains that surrounded the little town.

Cat was waiting near the door for the Kid. She ignored the fact that Jed was blowing his cold-reddened nose more than the frigid weather could account for.


	2. Chapter 2

As Heyes rode east on the train with Dr. Leutze, the medical man could see that his new patient was nervous. Joshua Smith wasn't just sorry to leave his friends. And he wasn't just anxious about going to a strange place. He seemed distinctly uneasy about the people on the train. Smith was trying to avoid the gazes of his fellow passengers. He mostly looked out the window in a determined way, looking into the car only briefly to sneak surreptitious peeks at anyone who entered the train car. When he did look into the car, he kept one hand near his mouth, hiding the distinctive dimple that was described all too well on the latest wanted poster for Hannibal Heyes. The doctor, unaware of his patient's real name and wanted status, was naturally puzzled by this behavior. "What's wrong, Smith?" Leutze asked softly, when no one else was near. "I know you don't like strangers to know you can't talk, but why are you so bothered about their seeing you? No one's going to hurt you – easterners are people, too!" Heyes gave the doctor a startled look – he hadn't realized his fears were so obvious. He tried to behave more normally, but it was hard.

From Heyes' point of view, of course, his avoidance of any interaction with people on the train made perfect sense. He wasn't actually too uneasy about meeting strangers, but being unable to speak was unendingly embarrassing. Some people thought the silent man was merely shy, but others had much more insulting reactions.

When Dr. Leutze was away from his seat soon after they boarded the train, the conductor came around checking tickets. Heyes looked for his ticket, but quickly realized that Dr. Leutze had inadvertently taken both tickets with him. "May I see your ticket, please sir?" the tall, haughty man in the blue uniform asked Heyes. The former outlaw made a show of looking for his ticket and being unable to find it. He shook his head. "Then where are you bound, sir?" asked the conductor. Heyes was helpless – he couldn't say the words he needed, he couldn't write them, and he didn't have anything printed that he could even hold up that said New York. He just shook his head, then stared at the conductor and blinked. The conductor impatiently asked again, "Where are you going! Where's your ticket." Heyes shook his head and turned away to avoid the angry man's eyes. The conductor touched him on the shoulder and asked him again, now more slowly and loudly. He repeated the question again, yet more slowly and loudly. Heyes tried to get up to see if he could find the doctor and get out of this predicament, but the conductor grabbed his shoulder and forced him back into his seat. People around the car were starting to stare and murmur.

"God damn it!" thought Heyes, starting to panic "Where's the doctor? I feel like a total idiot! What if that stupid conductor thinks I'm a stowaway and calls the law on me?"

"Are you deaf?" shouted the conductor, uselessly. After all, a deaf man would have been unable to hear him. Heyes shook his head and stared at the man, holding out his hands to indicate that he was helpless. "Do you speak English?" asked the ever more furious conductor insultingly slowly and loudly. Heyes nodded. "Do you understand me?" Heyes nodded more emphatically. "Then why won't you answer me, you idiot?" The word "idiot" seemed to echo around the train car as riders repeated it, sure it was true. The humiliated Heyes began to stand up. As he was drawing back his fist, Dr. Leutze came back, dashing down the train aisle just in time to put out his hand to stop Heyes from punching the train conductor.

Leutze was embarrassingly apologetic, "I'm so sorry, Joshua. I met an old friend, a fellow doctor, and we got to talking. I'm sorry to leave you along for so long." He addressed the conductor, "How can I help you sir?"

"Where are you and this damn idiot going? Where are your tickets!" asked the conductor in rude, jeering tones.

"Here are our tickets. Will you please apologize to my friend Mr. Smith?!" The doctor was really angry now, and the conductor was taken aback. "He's nearer a genius than an idiot – he just happens to be unable to speak because of a severe injury. Please apologize to him! You are very rude and insulting and I will report this to your superiors!" Heyes wished he could vanish into thin air – this was almost as bad as being taken for an idiot.

"I'll not apologize to any idiot!" exclaimed the conductor and stroke away out of the train car.

"Joshua, I can't tell you how sorry I am!" said the Doctor softly. "I'm mortified that you were exposed to that verbal assault. I don't blame you for wanting to hit him! Here, let me give you something that might help. I know it's embarrassing to use, but it's better than nothing, if this happens again."

Leutze sorted through his bag and found a little silver box of cards the size of calling cards. He sorted through them to find the one he wanted, which he handed to Joshua to keep. It read: "I have been injured and am unable to speak or write. I can hear and I understand English." Heyes looked at the card with a kind of horror, but he accepted it. It was humiliating, but it might help him out of hard situations. He tucked the awful card away in his coat pocket and hoped he wouldn't need it. But he knew that he would.

Yet even this confrontation with a rude stranger was nothing compared to what worried Heyes the most. His greatest fear was the very real possibility of meeting someone who knew him. He had ridden all over the West and met countless people. It would be deeply embarrassing to meet a casual friend, a former lover, even an old friend. It could be disastrous, even fatal for him to meet a sheriff, deputy, bounty hunter, detective, or rival outlaw – anyone who recognized him and was willing to use their knowledge against him. Even if such a person failed to kill or arrest Heyes, he could cost the mute man any chance of ever speaking more than a word or two ever again. Now that Heyes was away from the security of Christy's place and the Kid's protective presence, he no longer felt at all sure that Dr. Leutze would be willing to treat a notorious outlaw for aphasia. He surely was glad that the Kid had refused to tell Leutze who his partner was!

Without the Kid at his side or his gun on his hip (although it was in his bag), it was very unlikely, Heyes hoped, that anyone who didn't actually know him would spot him just from the wanted dead or alive posters. But anyone who actually did recognize him would be a real problem.

The Kid had always thought that his partner tended to look on the bright side of everything even when they were in the greatest danger. Heyes did tend to literally smile in the face of peril. The Kid said that having things go well made Heyes nervous. Actually, having things go well just bored Heyes and got on his nerves. The safe-cracking outlaw tended to look on the dark side of things – and to take a fiendish delight in it. The greater the problems facing him, the greater the high Heyes got from successfully defeating them. He had nearly complete confidence in his gifts and loved putting them to the test. Be it blowing a safe or conning a sheriff, the heart-pounding sense of danger and the dizzying relief of defeating it was a familiar emotional roller coaster ride. It gave Heyes a gambler's rush that was addicting. But now, with so many of his normal advantages cancelled out, and the Kid more miles behind all the time, Heyes felt utterly incapable of dealing with danger or even minor challenges. The thrill wasn't working anymore. His old habit of counting up problems to be surmounted left him feeling not excited but hopeless and vulnerable to countless fears.

Heyes settled down some as the train went east, moving away from the areas where the reformed outlaw felt he was most likely to meet people who would recognize him. But even as the train left Chicago to the west, Heyes looked up one afternoon and straight into the angry sneer of One-ear Carver, the notorious Montana outlaw. Carver and Heyes had had more than one very nasty run-in years before in Wyoming. They absolutely did not like each other. The hideously disfigured Carver was making his way down the train aisle, coming closer and closer to Heyes. The unshaven murderer's right hand started to move toward the gun on his hip as he recognized his old rival. Carver was the kind of man who would not hesitate to shoot a man dead and then jump off the train to avoid arrest. In fact, Heyes had seen him do it. When Heyes looked up and saw Carver he nearly panicked. He surely wished that the Kid rather than Dr. Leutze was sitting next to him. But it suddenly occurred to Heyes that Carver would assume that the Kid was actually nearby, as he always had been.

Heyes glared malevolently at his old rival, who glowered evilly back. Then Heyes, without losing eye contact with Carver, used his left hand to make the tongue of his belt click against his buckle. Heyes saw Carver jump at the tiny, metallic sound. To the suggestive mind, it sounded amazingly like a gun being cocked. Heyes looked up and past carver and allowed a slight relieved smile to cross his features. Carver's eyes shifted to the side, but he didn't dare to turn around to check whether the deadly gunman Kid Curry was in fact standing behind him with a cocked gun. He just hurried out of the train car and didn't return. Heyes exhaled in relief, hoping his old rival had jumped off the train. "You saved me again, Kid!" thought the Kid's partner in his enforced silence.

Dr. Leutze, who had observed this tense, silent exchange in wordless horror, quietly asked his new patient, "Was that an outlaw, a murderer?" Heyes nodded distractedly, trying to go back to looking out the window. But Leutze wouldn't let him alone. He touched Heyes on the shoulder and asked in an uneasy whisper, "Do you know many men as dangerous as that one?" Heyes looked at his dapper, eastern, doctor thoughtfully. Then he put his hands together and pointed them at the doctor like he was begging for something, then he held up five fingers. Heyes kept his face blank and watched the doctor carefully to see if he would get what was meant. The doctor took a few moments to solve this visual puzzle. As he got it, he smiled saw the answering sparkle in his patient's eyes, "Oh, I get it. You plead the fifth! Oh, very good!" Heyes nodded and they both laughed aloud. But Heyes caught the Doctor looking at him cautiously after that, as if wondering exactly what kind of patient he had taken on.

The next day, Dr. Leutze saw another side of Heyes. A little boy, maybe six years old, who had been sitting with his parents on the opposite side of the train aisle came over to the dark, quiet man who had just woken up from a long nap under his old black hat. "What did you lose, Mr.?" Heyes looked at him with puzzlement. "Was it your words?" Heyes took a deep breath and nodded. The boy, he realized, had seen the look of loss in his eyes, and somehow understood. "I hope you get your words back soon, Mister. Bye-bye!" Then the boy went back to his seat, as Heyes waved to him. When the little boy and his parents got off the train at the next stop. Heyes waved out the window to the child. He sure hoped the boy would get his wish, very soon.

When he wasn't dealing with fellow passengers, Heyes looked out the train window for other reasons than to avoid having people see him. He was headed to a place that had, in fact, always interested him. He was honestly curious about the country and towns they passed through. The long bridge over the massive, busy Mississippi river was a symbolic thrill – he was finally in the east, for the first time. Then they were back on a train, head into the rising sun. Heyes was fascinated by the green hills and the ever larger towns the train passed, every one new to the ex-outlaw. It seemed to him that the sky was getting smaller and the buildings were getting bigger.


	3. Chapter 3

As they came to New York the train went into a long dark tunnel that seemed to go on for an hour. Heyes' heart pounded in the darkness. They pulled out of a tunnel at last to emerge into the coal-dust-tinted New York City late afternoon sunshine, bringing the doctor and Heyes to the red brick towers of Grand Central Depot. It was far and away the biggest building Heyes had ever been in and he was very conscious of trying not to gawp like a hick. But he couldn't help staring around at the teaming crowds streaming off of trains and pouring out onto the streets of the city. He had never seen so many people in his life. This city dwarfed Denver and San Francisco. Heyes just hoped no one would pick his pocket. It would be mighty embarrassing for the master thief to be robbed! He had no Kid here to watch his back.

The doctor put up a hand and expertly signaled to the first in a line of waiting hansom cabs. He steered Joshua into the shiny black vehicle drawn by a rough-coated chestnut. They sat in the little vehicle with their luggage overflowing across their laps and the driver perched above them on top of the roof. The briskly trotting horse pulled the doctor and his new patient along the crowded streets. The street stank with the leavings of countless horses. Ironically, they had far, far more horses here in this big city than in any place Heyes had ever seen out west. The former outlaw, an effort, restrained himself from leaning out and staring at all the cabs and carts and carriages and wagons crowding the noisy thoroughfare, the drivers yelling at one another fiercely. He was impressed by the many, many people crowding the sidewalks and how they all were in such a hurry. The buildings were all taller than he had ever seen before, although the great age of skyscrapers was still in the future.

Soon they arrived at a three-story brownstone building where they got out of the cab. Heyes, luggage in hand, followed Dr. Leutze up a steep flight of stairs to the clinic on the second floor. Leutze introduced him to the receptionist, a pretty, smiling young blonde named Polly who made him feel like an arriving celebrity. "How wonderful it is to have you here, Mr. Smith! Dr. Leutze wired us about you!" Heyes could only give a brief, nervous grin in reply.

Polly and the other clinic employees who met Heyes were not at all surprised that the man from the West couldn't speak to them. A neatly suited elderly doctor named Goldstein warmly shook Joshua Smith's hand and welcomed him. Dr. Leutze then called over a Mr. Hamilton, a slender, dark-haired, middle-aged man who shook Mr. Smith's hand and didn't say a word. Heyes was startled to see the stark agony on Mr. Hamilton's otherwise normal, even handsome, face. God, what had happened to the man?! Then it hit Heyes. Of course – this was a patient – a fellow patient – who probably hadn't been there very long. Heyes wondered if his own eyes had that same terrible look of loss. It occurred to him that even when he shaved or combed his hair looking into a mirror, he had been avoiding looking into the reflection of his own eyes. He was sure that he did have a similar look – it was what the boy on the train had seen. Heyes tried to smile at his fellow patient, but Hamilton was already turning away to go into a therapy room.

A grey-haired elderly lady, who limped slightly, Emma Ross, had been there a year according to Dr. Leutze. Heyes guessed that she must have suffered what Dr. Leutze had told him was the most common cause of aphasia – a stroke. She looked to be in far less mental anguish than Hamilton, although the mark of her trouble was still there to be seen for one who knew how to look for it. She said, "Hello, meet, glad." Heyes soon learned that a lot of aphasia patients had trouble getting their words into the right order. Heyes choked out, "Hello" in response. It was the first word he had spoken, since the shooting, to anyone other than Dr. Leutze and the Kid. He had put hours of work into that word and was glad to have a good use for it to connect with this nice but troubled old lady.

Both patients and workers at the clinic communicated easily by gestures and facial expressions, using the means of conversing that worked best for the patients. It made Heyes uneasy because they cut right past the usual verbal formulas and looked into his eyes with a directness he wasn't used to from anyone but the Kid. Heyes couldn't hide his fears and his pain behind a silent façade as he had most of the trip on the train, and even at Christy's place. Now he was in a world where people understood his loss and insecurity all too well.

It was especially difficult for Heyes when women, like Miss Warren, the plump, middle-aged tutor, looked at him so honestly. "Welcome, Mr. Smith. Dr. Leutze tells me that you have special talents in mathematics. I look forward to working with you," she said. Heyes found himself blushing when she smiled at him, and she wasn't even pretty.

Dr. Leutze called down the hall to a young man bounding up the stairs about three at a time. "Jim, come and meet the newest member of the 'club!' This is Joshua Smith. He's just come with me from Colorado. Joshua, meet Jim Smith. Jim came here for treatment, but he's done so well that he works for us now."

Jim was a short, slight young man with a mop of unruly black hair. His brown eyes were much like Heyes' eyes – or like they had used to be – flashing with wit and fun. Jim was several inches shorter and more than ten years younger than Heyes, but he bore himself proudly and stuck out his hand to take Heyes' hand without a trace of self-consciousness. Heyes felt more confident just being around this young man. He was glad to see a patient who had apparently recovered pretty well.

Even when Jim Smith spoke, although he stuttered in a furious fusillade of consonants, he seemed fully in charge. "H-h-hello Joshua! S-s-so w-w-we are both S-S-Smiths! Welcome to N-N-New York!" Heyes could easily see the source of his aphasia – Jim had old white scars all over his face, especially the left temple. His nose had been badly broken and not well repaired. It was a miracle he was still alive after the beating he had taken. Heyes tried to smile at the young New Yorker and wasn't sure how well he succeeded in that, and he did even less well in avoiding staring at the scars. "Yeah, S-S-Smith," said Jim, "The g-gangs here are p-p-p-pretty fierce, b-b-but I know my way around – now. H-h-how'd you get yours?" This was bold, indeed! No one else had been so prying as to ask what had happened to the new patient to deprive him of his ability to speak.

Heyes used his left hand to ruffle the still short hair over the long red scar while he mimed a gun with his right hand. "Whew! G-g-gun shot?" Heyes nodded. "G-g-guess you have your own gangs out th-th-there!" Heyes nodded grimly. Of course, he had been shot because the posse had wrongly assumed that Heyes was still leading the Devil's Hole Gang.

Dr. Leutze said, "Jim, I understand you have a spare bed in your room just now. Would you be willing to take Joshua in, at least until he gets settled? I have a feeling you two will get along. I met him at a poker table, Jim!" The doctor winked broadly at Jim, who raised his ragged eye brows with mock skepticism.

"Y-y-you don't snore, d-do you, S-s-smith?" asked Jim with pretended seriousness. Joshua shook his head. With Jim's bent nose Heyes bet the boy did snore, but the westerner was in no position to complain. He just needed a place to bed down. "O-K-K-Kay!" said Jim, "G-G-Get your stuff and we can go d-d-down there now. You c-c-can wash up, then we'll g-g-get some chow."

Heyes looked apprehensively at the Doctor. Leutze had said not to worry about money, that he would provide what was needed. Heyes had been paying his own way since he was just a small boy and it went against the grain that he would have to depend on charity. With his recent poker winnings, Heyes thought he might have more than enough in his pockets to take Jim out to dinner, as long as his taste wasn't too expensive. Heyes didn't know how high New York prices might be. And he wanted to save his cash for poker, if what the doctor had implied was true. Heyes hoped that he could win some pocket money from the local players. At least he wouldn't have to be so careful of giving away his identity by doing too well, like he did out west.

A smiling but silent, stout, middle-aged man in a spotless suit helped Heyes to take his luggage back down stairs. Dr. Leutze greeted the man warmly as Sam, and explained to Joshua that Sam, like Jim, was a patient as well as an employee. Clearly, this patient wasn't making much headway – he couldn't speak a single word and even seemed a bit hazy on understanding speech, since Dr. Leutze mostly used gestures to communicate with him. The Leutze clinic, said Dr. Leutze, employed as many patients as possible who could not afford to pay for their treatment in any other way. Heyes wondered if they would find him something to do, and what it would be. He would be happy to do almost anything if it would help him to avoid taking so much of the good doctor's charity. Hard on the back or not, a job would be mighty welcome!

Heyes joined Jim on the sidewalk outside the clinic. The young New Yorker glanced curiously at Heyes' saddlebags, but didn't ask any questions. They were soon weaving their way through the crowds and vendors on the dirty sidewalks and street of the teaming ghetto where Jim's rooming house was, a few blocks south of the clinic. Heyes could feel himself staring as he got his first sight of orthodox Jewish men in black suits, tall hats, prayer shawls, prayer locks, and long beards. The women wore shawls or wigs over their hair and looked after skinny kids. Vendors sold an array of fruit, furniture, cooking utensils, and other goods from little carts. All were speaking rapidly in an unfamiliar language. Joshua raised his eyebrows to imply a question. "That's Y-Yiddish th-they're speaking, J-J-Joshua. Th-that's wh-what J-J-Jews speak." Heyes nodded his thanks for this information. They had arrived at Hester Street - the heart of Jewish New York. Heyes didn't even recognize the lettering on the shop windows – it was written in Hebrew letters. Jim greeted some of the men and women as they passed by, speaking in fluent Yiddish, not even stuttering. Heyes looked again at Jim. Smith sure didn't sound like a Jewish name even to the unworldly Heyes. Maybe this Smith was another alias like Heyes' own?

Up a couple of flights of steep, narrow, dirty stairs was Jim's room, which looked out on the street, thank goodness. The back tenement rooms were dark and smelly and airless. The sink was in the dark hallway, where Heyes had almost tripped over it – and a small child huddled nearby. Unused as Heyes was to anything other than a basin and pitcher, he sure wouldn't complain. But Jim's room, while very small, wasn't so bad. It was cold, but Heyes was used to that. He unpacked as he had so many times when moving into a hotel with the Kid. He put his carpet bag and boots under the bed, leaned his saddle bags in a corner, threw his old black hat onto the bed, and hung his gun belt, with its dangling cord for tying down the holster, over the bed post. He leaned his battered guitar, wrapped in an old feed sack, against the wall.

Heyes finished his brief moving in and turned around to find Jim staring at him open mouthed as if he had grown a couple of extra heads and sprouted wings. "Y-y-you a c-c-cowboy?" Heyes nodded casually, and held up one finger, then more. "You're a c-c-cowboy and other things, t-t-too?" Heyes nodded as he continued to arrange his things, moving his clothes into a little chest under his bed. "Like what? A g-g-gunman? An outlaw?" Heyes shook his head (a lie, of course) pointed at his useless mouth and glared at Jim in annoyance. If anyone ought to know that he couldn't explain things right now, it was Jim. "S-s-sorry, Josh! I know. I s-sure know. Hey, m-m-man, don't shoot me! But w-wow, to meet a r-r-real c-c-cowboy! Wow!"

Heyes now noticed that Jim had a pile of dog-eared books on a shelf by his bed – dime novels with titles about Wild Bill Hickok and Buffalo Bill Cody and Jessie James and Billy the Kid. Heyes felt himself blushing scarlet when he spotted one about himself and the Kid! He hoped he could cover his reaction with his general embarrassment about Jim's hero-worship of western characters. Heyes hadn't known that anyone had written about the Devil's Hole boys. He sure wished he could figure a way to make money out of it without giving away his identity! It was kind of nice to think that they were heroes to someone. He supposed it was all garbage. But it was also frightening – what if there was enough truth in the book to help Jim or someone else figure out enough to spot Heyes? How popular might such a book be in New York City? A policeman seemed much less likely to spot him than a sheriff, and Heyes guessed that he would be hard to pick out from all the thousands of dark-haired young men come from the West to New York, but what if someone managed it? Maybe someone like Jim, who read western novels and sure could use $10,000?


	4. Chapter 4

That first night Heyes and Jim Smith went out to eat at a pretty nasty local dive, which was all Jim could afford, but the food was good. It was Heyes' first taste of New York clam chowder (from canned clams that time of year) and he liked it. Heyes offered to pay, but Jim wouldn't hear of it. "T-t-treat's on me, J-Joshua!" Said the boy proudly. "It's y-y-your welcome t-to N-New York dinner!" They communicated with surprising ease despite Heyes' silence and Jim's wrestling with consonants.

There was a poker game going on in the back room of the joint between a bunch of rough-looking guys in bowler hats, with knives in evidence and bulges in their clothing that more than hinted at guns. Jim saw his new roomie eyeing the game through the open door. He shook his head firmly in answer to Joshua's questioning look. Instead, they went home early. It probably wasn't a bad idea, Heyes had to admit, since he would be starting the challenging regimen of therapy in the morning. And besides, he hadn't taught his repertoire of poker signs to Jim as he had to the Kid. He would have had a hard time communicating.

Back in their room, Jim lit a lamp and spoke earnestly to his new friend Joshua, telling him that the poker game he had seen included key figures from a rough local gang. Jim thought the newly arrived man had best stay away from such men. Jim struggled to communicate the terrible danger of the New York streets to a man from such a different place, whose background he didn't yet know. "W-w-watch their eyes, Joshua! When you s-s-ee that fear, that's a g-g-gang leader. St-st-eer clear! And w-watch your b-back with the guys around them. I l-l-learned that t-t-too late. N-nothing is t-t-too d-dirty for them! Th-th-ey hurt. Th-they k-k-kill – anyone who c-crosses th-them!"

Heyes looked at the floor guiltily. He thought how much the same thing must have been said about him when he had been a gang leader. Although he had tried to avoid violence as much as he could, he recalled seeing that fear in the eyes of men around him - especially when the Kid was at his side. Heyes had never killed or ordered a man to be killed, but he and the Kid had thrown quite a few punches and men had been beaten on Heyes' orders. It had been the only way to stay on top of a gang and to keep from being taken down by rivals. Sheer success, from good planning and strong organization, had been the most important force that had kept Heyes on top of the Devil's Hole bunch. But violence had come into it more often than Heyes liked to remember.

Heyes looked seriously at Jim. Jim's face showed the hurt and anger that remained from his violent past. Heyes looked questioningly at Jim's beaten face. Jim nodded and couldn't speak for a moment. Then he said, "Y-y-yeah, H-H-Honeymoon gang b-b-beat me. Th-the w-worst of th-them. And my d-dad, my b-brother. Not j-j-just beaten," Jim went on, with difficulty, "k-k-k-killed. N-nothing I c-could do. I w-was fifteen." Heyes reached over to touch Jim's hand. His eyes showed how he grieved for Jim and his shattered family.

Heyes struggled with his own emotions, but he felt that he had to let Jim know about his similar experience. Joshua could offer Jim much-needed moral support, and hoped perhaps to get some back. This wasn't a subject Heyes talked to a lot of people about and bringing it up to someone with so similar an experience made it much, much harder. Even to the Kid, he rarely raised the topic of their murdered parents and siblings. Heyes looked up at Jim and tapped his own chest and raised two fingers. Jim easily read the punning sign. He was appalled in his turn. "You too? Your f-family? How many?" Heyes nodded, trying to keep his face impassive, and held up four fingers. "O-o-oh my G-G-God!" stuttered Jim in agonized empathy. "Your f-f-father?" Heyes nodded. "Your m-m-mother? Brother, sister?" Heyes nodded again, swallowing hard. "H-how old were you?" Heyes held up all his fingers but one. "Only n-nine? You were left alone?" Heyes held two fingers, one on each hand, and brought them together – for himself and Jed. "B-brother? S-sister?" Asked Jim. Heyes shook his head and held up his hand on a shifting diagonal, trying to signal, "sort of." He sighed at the difficulty of communicating anything as subtle as a second cousin.

"N-never mind, Josh." Said Jim sadly. "You'll be able to t-t-tell me s-soon. When you want t-t-to. No hurry. I th-think the D-Doc is right. We'll get along f-fine." Heyes gave Jim a crooked little smile. He agreed that they should get along. He would try to be a big brother to Jim, although it sounded like sometimes it might be the other way around as Jim showed him the ways of the New York City streets.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooo

Much later that night Jim suddenly woke Heyes with a rough shake. "Sh-shut up, man!" he yelled. "You want us th-thrown out of here? I c-can't afford any place better and I wouldn't-t want any p-p-place worse!" Heyes, still panting from a violent night mare, was confused and had a hard time pulling himself out of a deep sleep.

"I th-thought you couldn't t-talk!" Jim said agitatedly, "Who's K-K-Kid? One of the gang guys?" The still very sleepy Heyes looked at Jim in bafflement. Jim, seeing that his new roommate had no idea of what he had said in his sleep, told him, "You were yelling 'N-No K-K-Kid!' like he was t-trying t-to hurt you." Heyes shook his head and held up one hand as if to protect himself from blows. He held up the same two fingers he had used before to indicate himself and the Kid and brought them together as he had before. "Your f-friend - like a b-b-brother? Protecting you?" Heyes shook his head, still a bit dazed, and shocked to learn that he had been yelling words in his sleep that hadn't returned to his waking vocabulary yet. "You were protecting him?" Now Heyes nodded. Suddenly the violent death of his family was haunting his sleep as hadn't happened to him in years! Here, in this strange place, far from home and from the Kid, Heyes felt like even his own mind was betraying him.

"K-Kid," said Jim, "Th-that's a n-nick-name I've read in b-books. C-c-common out West?" Heyes nodded.

Kid wasn't really that common a nickname, except for outlaws. But Heyes had to cover for his error just now, before he was properly awake. He had slipped and admitted the Kid's nick name and their close relationship! Heyes nearly panicked as he realized how much danger this could put the Kid and himself in, if Jim ever put two and two together. After all, Jim had read about Heyes and the Kid! What if Heyes said more in his sleep than he knew, as he had the first time he was shot in the head? How could he guard his words in his sleep? Heyes hardly slept the rest of the night as he tossed and turned in anxiety.


	5. Chapter 5

Early the next morning a bleary-eyed Heyes dashed cold water onto his face and apprehensively pulled himself together for his first day at the clinic. He thought about the therapy session to come as he walked up the street, so tired that he felt as if he were walking gradually into a hole. He already knew what hard work it was. He had started to feel at home working with Dr. Leutze to probe his memory and find the words hidden there, but that wouldn't ever make it easier. Heyes doubted he would get much work with the Doctor himself now, with so many other patients needing the head man, so he would have to get used to working with someone else.

But it was Doctor Leutze himself who beckoned Heyes into his office and gestured for him to sit down in a comfortable arm chair in the otherwise sparsely furnished office. The doctor sat down at his desk opposite his new patient. He peered critically at Joshua Smith. "Relax, Joshua. We'll start off slowly. But you don't look well – are you coming down with something?" Heyes sank into the chair and combed his fingers through his hair, trying to pull himself together. The doctor looked at him in concern. "You look exhausted. Didn't you sleep at all?" Heyes shook his head, and tried to keep from fidgeting. He was so sleepy that it was hard to sit in that comfortable chair without drifting off. He had to keep moving to keep awake. "New York is so noisy, even at night. People often have trouble getting used to it." Heyes nodded and looked down at the carpet, worried that his anxiety would show too much in his eyes.

Dr. Leutze leaned across the desk to touch his patient's shoulder lightly. Heyes looked up at him. The former outlaw's brow was furrowed and his lips tense. The doctor shook his head sadly. "I wish to God that you could tell me what's wrong. You look so worried. It's more than just being tired and so far from home, isn't it? You'll be able to tell me soon – if it's any of my business. I won't ask Jim unless you want me to." Heyes shook his head anxiously. The last thing Heyes wanted was for Jim to start wondering what was worrying his new roommate – to start asking more questions that could lead to awkward answers. "Now you have me worried, too! If you don't want me to talk to Jim about it, I won't. But you have to relax and work with me or we won't get anywhere! You have to be patient with yourself. This kind of healing doesn't happen overnight. Why do I get the feeling that you're a man who wants everything at once?"

Heyes looked into Dr. Leutze's pale, sensitive blue eyes with a faint smile on his face. He tried to forget his other fears and to concentrate on their work together, but the reformed outlaw found it hard to do the demanding thinking that he need to do. He was too distracted and much too tired. On the train ride he had felt restless without much space to move in. Now he just wanted peace and the same security that had eluded him all his life. But he could never have security while those awful dead or alive posters were all over the west. And no one who helped him could be secure, either. He carried guilt about with him. Anyone who helped him could be accused, as the Jordan family had been, of aiding and abetting a fugitive from the law. He kept thinking that it was wrong to be asking so much of Dr. Leutze and Jim Smith and all these people without telling them who he was. He could be putting them all in danger and he couldn't even tell them that.

Heyes and the doctor labored and labored, but finally Dr. Leutze said, "It's just not going to happen today! You are just too tired and distracted. Go back to bed and get some rest so you can do decent work tomorrow. Heyes felt ashamed to go back to Jim's little room early and with no new words to show for his work.

That night in Jim's little tenement room, Heyes couldn't settle down to sleep. He kept worrying that he would have another screaming nightmare. Once he did start to have a vivid, troubling dream and then he jerked away panting, with a wordless cry. Jim looked in his direction worriedly in the dark, but didn't say anything. Only in the early hours of the morning did Heyes fall into a deep, exhausted sleep.

He woke suddenly to find himself alone in a brilliantly sun lit room. Heyes didn't need to see Jim's big old clock to know that he had badly overslept. As he sat up in bed, a piece of paper fluttered to the floor. Heyes picked it up and looked at it blearily. A note was scribbled on it in messy handwriting: "Josh - The Doc told me to let you sleep as much as you need. You can't do good work if you don't sleep. Jim". Heyes smiled to himself. He was glad to have a new roommate, and a doctor, who were sympathetic to his troubles. He thought about how often the Kid had had to wake him early as they rode out of trouble. Would any of that trouble follow him here?

That day at the clinic, even after getting a few hours of decent sleep, Heyes couldn't manage to recover a single word. He fretted away in Jim's room that night, pacing the floor. His roommate tried to comfort him. "G-g-gsoh, Smith. S-s-some folks take w-w-weeks to g-g-get one word. D-D-Doc says you g-g-got your first word in d-d-days. You'll g-g-get there." It was kindly meant, but it didn't help Heyes much.

Another day went by and another. Still nothing. On that fourth day, Heyes worked for four solid hours. He sipped from a large cup of coffee, hoping it would help him to keep going. But he found no results but frustration. He suddenly closed his eyes, looking down and away from the doctor's eyes. Then he started up from his seat and hurled his coffee cup across the room to shatter on the door. Leutze gaped at the sudden noise, but he wasn't that surprised. His patient was so tormented by tension that it had just gotten too much. Heyes looked in anguish at the Doctor, wishing he could apologize properly.

Heyes' felt that his trouble came far more from his own demands than from those of the doctor. What if he never talked again? What would he do? He would be dependent on his friends and the Kid, his only family, for the rest of his life. Even being perfectly able-bodied, he would be a cripple. And if he ever was caught and thrown into prison, the men would eat him alive. He would be utterly helpless.

Heyes wondered if maybe the lack of physical exercise was one of his problems. Maybe he just needed some open space. So he stalked off to walk in Central Park for a while all by himself. It was a cold October afternoon, but he hoped desperately that he could walk off the tension and make better progress the next day.


	6. Chapter 6

As the Colorado winter came on, Jed Curry settled into working with Cat Christy at the saloon and hotel. He hoped that nothing would make him have to vanish yet again. He was essentially the co-manager of Christy's Place now and helped Cat to make the practical decisions. He enjoyed the life, working closely with Cat and the other employees, meeting people from all over who came to the saloon and hotel, playing cards. He just had to keep a very careful eye on the people who came in – watching always for bounty hunters, out of town lawmen, and outlaws. The Kid and the sheriff had achieved a relationship of cordial silence. They saw one-another, but contrived never to meet or to speak. They would exchange silent salutes and smiles across the saloon's front room, but that was all.

The Kid had sent a carefully coded telegram to Lom Trevors, telling him that "Smith" had been shot in the head and was going to New York City for medical treatment. He gave the sheriff his own new address. Lom sent back his wishes for good results and said in their simple code that no, he still had no good news for Smith and Jones.

The Kid sent an encouraging note to Heyes via Dr. Leutze at the clinic. He nervously watched for return word from Heyes, but knew that mail from the east coast would take a few days.

When the weather permitted, the Kid went out by himself riding and hunting in the mountains, kind of enjoying the silence in the early days. Sometimes he rode his horse, Blackie, and sometimes Heyes' horse, Clay. But eventually, not having his partner at his side started to eat at him. He wondered more and more about when Heyes would be back, and what he would be like when he did come. Curry, as he rode one day in the snowy mountains, peering between the pine boughs to take a shot an elk, thought about the days when such meat would have been shared with Heyes on the trail. Curry had a feeling that things between them would never really be the same again. In some ways, that would be a good thing – riding for their lives did get pretty old after a few years. But in other ways, the Kid really missed bantering with Heyes as they rode through some of the most beautiful country on earth.

About ten days after Heyes had left a letter arrived addressed to Mr. Thaddeus Jones and Miss Catherine Christy. It was written in Dr. Leutze's elegant hand. The Kid opened the sheet and read it aloud to Cat:

"Dear Mr. Thaddeus Jones and Miss Catherine Christy:

Joshua Smith and I arrived safely in New York as planned. He is working very hard. ["Heyes working hard at something other than poker or safe cracking? They are doing miracles!" muttered the Kid.] However, I can't hide from you that he isn't making any progress yet. Joshua is having a hard time sleeping and it affects his work badly. He is frustrated and he misses his home out west. When he isn't with me he is in Central Park sitting on a rock on the west side looking toward the setting sun. [The Kid cleared his throat.] Something is worrying him and even causing him to be fearful, but I cannot determine what it might be. The lack of speech can be a very isolating thing and thing and it is affecting him very much. If you can give me any advice about how to set Joshua's mind at ease, I would value that very much. ["Get a posse to chase him!" suggested the Kid only half joking, "That ought to concentrate his mind!"]

Joshua is staying at a rooming house on the lower east side of Manhattan. He shares a room with one of our employees, who is also a long-time patient, Mr. James Smith. Jim is a young native of a very rough area of this city. His aphasia was due to a bad beating, but after a few years of work at the clinic his speech is almost normal except for a severe stutter. ["Years?" asked Curry, appalled, "it takes years? To be almost normal? And he still stutters? What is Heyes in for?"] Jim knows this great city very well and is glad to show your friend around. People have taken to jokingly calling them the Smith brothers – have you seen the cough drops of that brand with the proprietors' bearded faces on the box? Neither of our young Messes Smith has grown a beard, however. ["Has a new partner, has he?" thought the Kid. Cat, reading his mind, gave the Kid a soft kiss. The Kid thought of the rock in Central Park. No, Heyes wouldn't forget him any time soon.]

You may write to Joshua at the following address:

#2a, 88 Hester Street, New York City, New York

I know that he would be glad to hear from you. I hope that a letter from you will help him to do better.

Sincerely,

Dr. Samuel Leutze"

The Kid and Cat looked at each other with worried faces. "That just ain't like Heyes at all," murmured the Kid to his lover. "He sleeps like a baby, pretty much no matter what. Unless he's planning something – then he can sit up all night. But other than that, he sleeps fine even out in the desert or on rocks in the mountains. Or, well, he did before he got shot. It's true, after that I did hear him getting restless and even yelling at night. That damn bullet!" Cat snuggled up next to her man and tried to get him calmed down, but he stayed restless and worried.

Would Heyes never get better? Was the silver tongued outlaw gone for good? The Kid and Cat sent a letter to Heyes and took to doing so every week, regular as clockwork. They tried to be as encouraging as they could and not to let on about their fears for Heyes. No posse or bounty hunter had turned up in Louisville, which they had to communicate to Heyes indirectly by simply saying that all was well and the saloon and hotel were thriving. They could not be absolutely sure that any letter might not be opened and read by someone else, who could put the fugitive pair in jeopardy.

To Dr. Leutze, Cat and the Kid were at a loss of what they could say. The only thing that would ever put Heyes' mind at ease was amnesty – that and the ability to speak again. His own guilt had kept him from speaking the truth to nearly everyone he met, and now he couldn't speak at all. If only Heyes could free himself from his very justified fears, perhaps he could speak again. But until he was granted amnesty, he could not speak truly freely and he knew it.

Cat and the Kid only advised the doctor to make sure that Joshua Smith was granted as much privacy and independence as possible and the ability to get out of doors – all of those being thing that would be hard to manage in the cold, crowded New York winter.


	7. Chapter 7

Heyes, stricken with fear and guilt, wandered the trails of Central Park in the vain search for peace. He just needed time to think without anyone asking anything of him. It was too cold for him to stay long, but it was good just to get away from the constant mental demands of therapy, and the barrage of disappointment he was suffering at the clinic. Dr. Leutze and his colleagues were kind and patient with their new western patient, knowing how slow progress could be. But Heyes' high expectations and demands made him feel like an utter failure.

Even in the quiet, wooded Park, there was no peace for Heyes. He heard a voice from his past calling down the path, "Joshua! Joshua! How amazing to see you again, here of all places!" A slender blonde woman waved at him and walked quickly toward him. Heyes recognized the lovely face and the eastern accent. It was Julia, the out of work milliner from Boston whom he had met on the ill-fated "archeology" expedition into Devil's Hole country soon after he and the Kid had started to go straight. Julia had fallen hard for the party's handsome guide "Joshua Smith" and had briefly been his lover. He didn't even know her real last name – only the false one – Finney - she had taken on in the pay of a Scotland Yard detective. Heyes guessed that made them even since she had no idea of his true name.

Heyes couldn't bear the thought of Julia's seeing him like this – barely able to speak a word. He tried to duck away into the trees, but without leaves they offered little cover. Julia called after him, "Joshua, you heard me and you recognize me! What's wrong?" He stood in mute agony beside the path while Julia hurried over to him. As she got close she looked up and down the path, and seeing that there was no one near, whispered "You really are an outlaw, aren't you? Mr. Finney, the Scotland Yard man, that's what he thought. He was right, wasn't he? That's why you didn't want me to recognize you. Don't be silly! I won't turn you in!"

Heyes shook his head at her, desperate to keep any suggestion of his outlaw status from following him to New York. He immediately felt awful about lying even wordlessly – yet again. Julia was the same straight-forward, warm girl she had been two years before and he would have much preferred to be honest with her. "Aren't you going to even say 'hello'?" she asked. Heyes ducked his head. He tried to speak and nothing would come out. "Joshua, what's wrong? Why won't you speak to me?" she asked anxiously and looked at him in concern. Then Heyes saw the thing he most dreaded – pity in her eyes. She had spotted the long scar clearly visible under the still short hair on his left temple. "Oh my goodness, you're hurt! Oh Joshua! You can't talk, can you?"

Joshua shook his head and looked away from her. He felt ready to sink right through the path and vanish in shame. He mimed a gun. Julia was appalled. "You were shot? Shot in the head? Oh Joshua, that's awful! You poor thing!" Julia reached for his hand, but Heyes took a step away from her and crossed his arms defensively. It might have been rude, but he couldn't help it. He felt as miserable and isolated as he had ever been in his life. He couldn't endure being pitied.

Julia went on, knowing her former lover was in distress but seeming to be unaware of how much worse she was making it, "What are you doing in New York? Seeing a doctor?" Heyes nodded. "Is it helping?" Heyes shook his head, looking determinedly at the path under his feet.

"Not yet?" Julia prompted. "Oh, you will do better! I know you will! Come with me. I'm in town on an errand for our shop in Boston and I'm staying near here. Let's go to dinner – I know a good place."

Heyes didn't want to spend a minute more with Julia than he had to. It was too painful to think of her comparing the highly competent man she had known before with the reduced creature he felt that he was now. But he couldn't find a way to escape. Heyes' only comfort in New York had been knowing that he could vanish into the masses of people. Other than the Kid, none of his former friends would ever find him here and see his humiliating disability. Now even that comfort was denied him – his past had found him out. Could the law be far behind?

But in another way, Heyes was glad Julia had found him. He was horribly lonely, especially for the company of women – women who saw him as a man, not just a bundle of symptoms and problems. Julia was so solicitous; it was not hard for her to convince Heyes to go with her to dinner. They went to a charming little French restaurant where they sat at a tiny table for two. Julia did enough talking for them both, chattering on about her new job at another millinery shop Boston, and the small doing of "The Hub of the Universe." She was endlessly thoughtful, attentive and affectionate. Heyes reached across the little table, dodging the wine bottle, and kissed the delighted Julia. God, it felt good to kiss a woman again, and to feel her respond. It had been only a few weeks since he had kissed Peggy good-bye, but it felt like forever to Heyes.

Before Heyes knew what was happening, Julia had suggested that they return to her hotel room. They entered the small, grubby lobby one at a time in a vain attempt to avoid the appearance of impropriety. Then Heyes was in her little bed. He made love to her with a ferocity that he couldn't help and couldn't excuse.

Heyes was consumed with guilt even while they lay together. He knew that in her bed he hadn't been expressing any real love for Julia – only using her in a vain attempt to relieve his own anguished loneliness. To try to make it up to Julia, he behaved with more affection than he really felt, stroking her and kissing her. He had treated this good woman as badly as any prostitute, but without even paying her. She had even paid for the dinner! He felt completely filthy.

Despite his exhaustion, Heyes didn't allow himself to fall asleep in Julia's rented bed. Heyes, unable to bear what he was doing any longer, got up. He left Julia's bed, of course without a word. He turned away from her and dressed while Julia begged him to stay all night with her. Her ignored her and walked out, still tucking in his shirt. She rapidly dressed and tried to follow Heyes as he hurried into the night. He was unsure where he was or where he needed to go to get to Jim's place on Hester Street. He only knew that he had to get away.

Julia, starting out well behind Heyes because she had started dressing later and because a woman's clothes took longer to put on, couldn't catch up with her lover. He retreated with long, rapid strides. She called after him down the dark street, "Joshua! Come back! Come back! Where can I find you? Can I see you again? Joshua! Please!" Heyes didn't pause or turn back. He prayed that she would never be able to find him again. She called after him again and again, but he didn't look back. He almost ran away – from his own shame for more than from Julia herself.

At last Julia yelled angrily at the top of her lungs after her retreating lover. "You really are an outlaw, aren't you?! I know who you are! You're a thief - Hannibal Heyes the thief!" Some stranger from a nearby apartment yelled at her to shut up and she did.

Heyes' heart pounded – his name had followed him – and it might lose him his freedom forever. Would anyone of the dozens or even hundreds who must have heard Julia's shout believe her? He could hardly walk fast than he was already and he couldn't call a cab, unable as he was to give any address as a destination. Would Julia turn him in? Heyes took a wandering route back to Jim's place, both because he kept getting lost in the stinking urban darkness and because he hoped to throw off any pursuit. He had no idea if she would turn him in if she found him – no idea at all. After what he had done to her, he wouldn't have blamed her if she did.


	8. Chapter 8

Heyes crept in the door of his shared room in the dark of the wee hours. He hoped that he hadn't woken Jim, but wasn't sure. He thought of the number of times that he and the Kid had snuck back into shared hotel rooms after their respective romantic liaisons. The Kid didn't ever say anything critical about being awoken by his prowling partner – nor did Heyes attack the Kid for his frequent nocturnal adventures. A little teasing went back and forth, of course. But that was just fun between friends. Heyes hoped that Jim would be as understanding as the Kid was, or even a little more. He shrank from being teased for pleasure-seeking that had caused him little but pain.

Of course, Heyes overslept badly the next day. He could hardly drag himself to the clinic, long after Jim was there. As Heyes walked down the long, dirty Manhattan street, he felt numb, as if he was floating a few inches above the ground. He was in the last stages of exhaustion, both physical and emotional. Heyes labored up the steep stairs, mortified to be late again. And he was racking with guilt at making no progress at the clinic. He was wasting their time and money, day after day. He was living disgracefully on charity. He wasn't up to even coping with the question of what he could possibly do if he never could learn to speak again.

As Heyes walked down the clinic's long, narrow hall and neared Dr. Leutze's door, he heard footsteps approaching rapidly from the hall behind him. He turned to see a pair of blue-clad policemen hurrying towards him. They pointed towards him and one yelled, "Here, you, stop! Hold it right there! Hands up!" Heyes, with all the times he had faced the law, felt more terrified this time than he ever had. Without the Kid, without his gun or his voice, Heyes couldn't begin to think of anything that he could possibly do – except to surrender. Hey tamely put up his hands, as he had done far too many times before.

The policemen stepped forward, handcuffs at the ready. Heyes stood frozen, his thoughts racing. Through him, the law would find the Kid. The Kid and Cat too, would be caught and jailed, if they could not get away in time. And there was no way for Heyes to warn them – no way at all. He could neither speak nor write. He was utterly helpless.

"Not you – him!" said the policeman, shoving his way past Heyes to where Sam, the silent patient and porter, had been hiding behind a file cabinet. "Get out of the way!" the policeman ordered Heyes, "let us at this brute!" To Sam, who couldn't understand a word, the officer said, "You, put your hands up! Put your hands up! You're coming with us!" Sam just stood there, trembling, without a clue of what to do. Heyes, was panting with relief, but racked with grief for Sam's predicament. The policemen had to grab Sam's hands and force his wrists into the handcuffs. Sam did not resist – he simply did not know what the men wanted him to do.

Heyes wished he could help Sam in some way. The two men had begun to make friends, united as they were by their silence and frustration. Heyes, who had been arrested so often, understood all too well the fear Sam was feeling. But there was nothing he could do about it. Sam tried to grab onto his friend, but the policemen pulled him away.

Dr. Leutze stormed into the hall. "What is the meaning of this?" demanded Dr. Leutze. "I'm in charge of this clinic and this man is my patient. Why are you arresting him? Be careful there, don't hurt him!" Sam looked desperately at the doctor, worried by the angry tone of his voice.

One of the policemen answered Dr. Leutze, "He assaulted a woman, Doctor. A clerk in a tobacco shop. We happened to be just outside the shop where it happened. He wouldn't say anything for himself – he just ran here. He won't listen to anything we say – is he some kind of idiot? What is this place, anyway?"

"This is the Leutze Clinic for Aphasia – we treat people who have suffered a head injury or a stroke and cannot speak. I am Dr. Leutze. Believe me, Sam Terwilliger is completely sane and he's no idiot – but he is utterly unable to speak and he understands little speech." Dr. Leutze kept him voice calm and looked at Sam rather than at the policeman as he spoke. He could communicate with Sam only through the tone of his voice.

"That's too bad that he can't speak for himself, but we've got to bring him in," answered a gruff policeman. The policemen were at a loss to know how to deal with a suspect who couldn't talk.

"And who is this man?"asked the second policeman, pointing at Heyes. The former outlaw was still standing by, with his hand on Sam's shoulder, trying to keep the man calm. Heyes couldn't help looking very anxious about his first encounter with the New York police. "Are you a friend of this man Terwilliger? Will you come to the police station and help us with him?"

Joshua nodded. To help his friend to get through what he had to endure, Heyes was willing to endure whatever it took. He was perfectly willing to confront his own fear of the law head-on.

Dr. Leutze interrupted, "Mr. Smith is a patient who hasn't been here long, so he cannot speak and he doesn't know Mr. Terwilliger very well. There is no reason for him to come to the police station with us. I can come with you and translate for Mr. Terwilliger."

Joshua grasped Dr. Leutze's hand and gestured toward Sam and the policemen. Dr. Leutze looked thoroughly perplexed about why Joshua would want to go to the police station, but could see that he did. "Alight, Joshua. Do you really want to come?" Joshua nodded, trying not to panic. He looked his sympathy at Sam, feeling very strongly for what the man was going through, since he had been through it so often himself.

It was a clearly agitated Joshua Smith who accompanied Dr. Leutze in a cab following the horse-drawn paddy wagon to the police station. Dr. Leutze tried to ask him why he wanted to come, but Heyes was unable to give him any answer. He sure couldn't say "I've been arrested a dozen times and I want to help my friend to get through it! I know how awful it is! It must be much worse when he can't speak or even understand English!"

At the police station all the attention was centered on Samuel. Dr. Leutze was convinced that Sam had just been trying to use gestures to communicate with the shop keeper whom he was accused of assaulting. Sam had evidently touched the woman in the course of trying to tell her what he wanted and she, seeing that he couldn't speak, had jumped to conclusions and become frightened.

Sam was utterly flummoxed by this situation that he couldn't understand. They had to virtually peal him off of Heyes and the doctor to put him in a cell – he held to the only people he knew. It took a couple of hours for Dr. Leutze to make his official statement and to convince the woman who had brought charges to think about dropping her charges. It was impossible for Heyes to make any statement at all, of course. Sam had to remain in a cell for that night and lawyers would be called in the next day.

When Sam had been locked away and Dr. Leutze was making his statement, no one paid any attention to Joshua Smith. He wandered around the large police station.

As Dr. Leutze said good-bye to the policemen and prepared to leave, Joshua plucked his sleeve. His eyes were wide. "What in God's name is the matter, Joshua?" Joshua Smith silently beckoned for his doctor to follow him into another room. There they found a long wall plastered from ceiling to floor with wanted posters. They were from all over the country, from New York to California. Near the center were two yellowing posters, matching except for the featured names in bold capital letters: Kid Curry, slightly overlapping the poster for Hannibal Heyes. Both posters offered the bounty of $10,000.00 to anyone who brought in Heyes or Curry, dead or alive. A tall, grey-haired policeman they hadn't met before walked through the room and happened to see Joshua Smith pointing to that pair of western posters and Dr. Leutze following his gaze. He chuckled, "Yeah, we got posters from everywhere. Can't leave out those famous western ones. We sure won't be the ones to catch Heyes and Curry, but people like to see the names and read the descriptions. Somebody'll catch 'em one day, and won't they be rich!" The policeman laughed and went on.

When the policeman was safely gone, Heyes gestured to his poster again and pointed to himself. Leutze looked at him, mystified. "Are you saying that you know the man?"

Heyes shifted his feet nervously and shook his head. He held out his hands to Leutze, joined at the wrists as if in handcuffs. Leutze read the Heyes and Kid Curry posters. Then he read them again, with his mouth dropping open. He shook his head, trying to deny what was becoming all too plain. "Joshua Smith's" resemblance to the description of Hannibal Heyes, and "Thaddeus Jones'" resemblance to the description of Kid Curry were both unmistakable. Leutze grabbed Heyes by the shoulders and guided him toward the station door. Once they were out on the sidewalk, Leutze looked at his patient and whispered, "Honest to Pete, Smith, are you telling me that you are Hannibal Heyes the infamous outlaw?"

Heyes looked at the ground and closed his eyes in agony. He nodded and held out his hands again, as if he were already in hand cuffs. The doctor spoke in a very low voice, waiting to say anything until he was sure that no one was near them who could hear him. "You can't really want to be arrested? It's obvious that you aren't active as a criminal anymore. Are you?"

Heyes shook his head. "And your partner, he's gone straight too?" Heyes nodded and dared to look into Leutze's eyes to show how strongly he felt. "But you want me to know who you are. Just to be honest with me? So I'll know who I'm helping?" Heyes nodded, keeping eye contact with his doctor. He put out his wrists together again and gestured back to the police station. Leutze looked at him in desperate puzzlement. "Wait, you do still want to be arrested?" Heyes stood still, not confirming or denying this statement. "You – can you be worried that I could be in trouble for, what is the phrase, 'aiding and abetting a fugitive from the law?'" Heyes nodded emphatically and then studied the ground in shame. "You don't want to put me in danger." The doctor became excited. "That's it! That's what's been bothering you all along – you don't want to endanger me and my colleagues! Oh, for goodness sake man, no one is going to find you here, if you are at all careful! I wouldn't think of turning you in. I took an oath – 'First, do no harm.' I wouldn't harm you, or your partner, not for anything. I give you my word on that! You came to the police station when you didn't have to come. You put yourself in the worst possible danger for a friend who can't even thank you. What kind of man would I be if I turned you into the law for such a brave and generous act?" Heyes stared at the doctor, his mouth open in amazement and his eyes full of his gratitude.

Leutze held up his hand to catch the eye of a passing cabby. "We're going back to the clinic," he told his patient. "And you're coming with me, Mr. Heyes. You're safe here with me."

Dr. Leutze let the emotionally spent Heyes go as soon as they got back to the clinic, although the working day wasn't really over. But, in the privacy of the doctor's office, Leutze said, "But tomorrow, Heyes, be here on time. Tomorrow we get started and you WILL do your best work. Now, go get some sleep. No more nightmares! You are safe here." Heyes blinked hard and nodded.

Heyes and Dr. Leutze heard Jim outside the door, stuttering in a conversation with one of the therapists. Heyes pointed toward the door, and the man on the other side of it, and put his finger to his lips. Dr. Leutze, expert at reading such signs, understood at once. "Of course I won't tell Jim! He hero worships you – I mean what he's read about you, Heyes. If he knew who you really are, he'd make your life miserable, and the word would get out at once. He's faithful, but he's young and can be indiscrete. No, I won't tell anyone without your permission. Let me repeat – you are safe with me!"

Heyes was so weary that the Doctor called him a cab to take him back to Jim's place. As soon as Heyes got to their room, fell into an exhausted and relieved sleep. Obviously, Jim had ratted him out, revealing Heyes' nightmares to Dr. Leutze. But Heyes couldn't find it in his heart to be annoyed at his roommate. Privacy was one thing – safety was another.

Heyes was glad that the police released Sam the next day when his accuser dropped all charged. Heyes only hoped that he wouldn't hear from the police himself, despite the good doctor's assurances.


	9. Chapter 9

The next morning, Heyes woke with the sun and smiled at Jim for the first time since his first day there. His roommate at once knew that something had happened. He knew about the trip to the police station - that rumor could hardly be scotched. But Jim couldn't for the life of him figure out why Joshua Smith was so transformed by this experience. Jim and Heyes walked together to the clinic that morning and every morning, Heyes setting an eager, long-strided pace the young New Yorker had a hard time matching.

Heyes greeting Polly the receptionist with a bright smile and a wink, which took her totally aback. What had happened to the morose, late-rising Mr. Smith? Dr. Leutze smiled gladly to see his new patient arriving on time, rested and ready for work for the first time. Heyes and the doctor started to work on a different word, or rather words, than they had tried before. It took hours, but, with Dr. Leutze's gentle, persistent guidance, at last things began to turn. Perhaps it helped that the words they worked on were the very words Heyes wanted the most to say. He had been longing to say these words to many people ever since he had woken up in Christy's place and realized how much help his friends were giving him and how vital it was for him. Heyes said his new two-word phrase to the doctor in a voice shaking with emotion, "Thank you!" Heyes had never meant any words so much in all his life. He just wished he could have had those same words available when he had parted from the Kid and Cat two weeks before.

That evening, Heyes went back to his room and used his new words on his long-suffering roommate. And then took Jim out to dinner. Jim had no idea of what had happened to his roommate, but he knew whatever it was, was good. He was nearly as grateful as Heyes was, to have his friend finally relaxed and reasonably happy.

After his visit to the police station, Heyes' progress at the clinic improved day by day. He got down "no" (since he already had "yes"), "good-bye," (he already had "hello"), "please," and "help" during a single week. As more nights went by without any return of Heyes' screaming night mares, the westerner relaxed more each day. Life still wasn't easy, with only a few isolated words at his command. The vast majority of what Heyes wanted to say and do was still denied him, but at least he could make progress. The log jam had broken.

Polly at the clinic was delighted that the handsome Mr. Smith actually started to arrive at the clinic on time every morning, with a smile on his face and often whistling cheerfully as he came in. No one except Dr. Leutze knew what had worked the transformation in Joshua Smith, and he wasn't saying. But Beth Warren, the tutor, one day as Mr. Smith was leaving Dr. Leutze's office, heard the doctor whisper a familiar Bible verse under his breath, "The truth shall set you free."

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The following week, Heyes started to work with a nice elderly doctor, Doctor Judah Goldstein, rather than always with Dr. Leutze. The bearded, grey haired Goldstein had sparkling brown eyes behind his wire-rimmed glasses. He was demanding but sympathetic and had a quick, dry wit that helped to keep Heyes engaged in the demanding process. With Dr. Goldstein he started on simple pronouns and verbs like "I am, you are, I do, you do." Heyes felt that was quick work, and useful. He was glad to practice his newly recovered words with the clinic staff and patients, who understood his difficulties and were impressed by his progress. He felt frustrated by his tiny, slowly expanding vocabulary. But he soon realized that his progress was considered very rapid indeed, by comparison with almost every other patient in the clinic. Certainly, his success was a miracle next to the continuing failure of Sam to gain any new communication skill.

Heyes was overjoyed to be improving at last, although in those first weeks he was usually too self-conscious to say anything at all in front of strangers – at least in English. However, in the mornings and evenings as he and Jim walked through the lower blocks of Manhattan where they lived, Heyes began picking up a bit of Yiddish from their neighbors. He actually could say "gut-morgn" and "gute nackht" to his new Yiddish-speaking friends a day or two before he could say "good morning" and "good evening" to his English-speaking friends. He could buy "broyt" in the street from a Yiddish vendor before he could order bread in a restaurant in English. Something about learning it rather than rediscovering it made it, at first, faster for him to learn this new language than to regain English. For one thing, there was less emotional pressure involved in learning a language in which no one had any expectations of him than there was in taking up again the language that everyone outside the clinic expected him to speak perfectly. Jim and Dr. Goldstein, both fluent in Yiddish, laughed at Heyes' rapidly improving skills in the language. They both had to admit that the westerner had a good accent from the beginning. Heyes had a knack for imitating what he heard. And he enjoyed learning new things more than anything!


	10. Chapter 10

One morning soon after he had begun to make progress, Joshua was finishing a productive session with Dr. Leutze. The doctor leaned toward Heyes and dropped his voice to a low whisper. "Heyes, I have an important question for you. Would you like me to write to your partner and tell him that you've told me your real name?"

Heyes looked at his doctor, his eyes darting back and forth with nervousness. His lips parted, but he couldn't yet say what he needed to say.

Dr. Leutze understood his concern. "Don't you think we should do it? Careful as we are, something could slip – someone could be standing outside the door right now listening. I'd swear that they aren't but they could be. We could put him in danger." Heyes nodded slowly in understanding. Then he looked up and nodded more decidedly. Alright, the doctor could write to the Kid. But Heyes still looked very tense.

Leutze tried to think what could be causing his patient further worry. It came to him, "I'll be careful, Heyes. I know that mail can be read by persons to whom it is not addressed. I'll write it and you let me know if you think it's giving away too much – alright?"

Heyes nodded. But he stayed a bit nervous as the letter was written and sent and he waited for the Kid's reply. How mad would his partner be?

On the first day of November, another letter arrived in Louisville from the Leutze clinic.

Dear Mr. Thaddeus Jones and Miss Catherine Christy-

I write with far better news than my last letter contained. Joshua Smith is at last making progress in his therapy. He is gradually adding new words to his vocabulary. At this difficult early stage, he is still restricted to single words and he will rarely say anything to a stranger, but the ability to communicate even a little is a vast relief to him. His roommate tells me that Mr. Smith is sleeping much better. He is beginning to adjust to life in New York, but he certainly still misses his friends. I hope that you will write to him regularly. Your letters mean more to him that he will ever admit to you.

I must tell you that one of the reasons Mr. Smith is so much improved is that he was relieved to share a very important fact with me. He and I both realize that this was a fact you would prefer that I did not know, but he felt that he could no longer hide it from me. He did not wish to put me and my staff in danger. But, of course, he did not wish to put you both in any danger. Please accept my assurances that I will do nothing to put you in harm's way. As I told Mr. Smith, I took an oath that begins with the words that I should do no harm. I give my word that I will do no harm to you nor allow anyone else to do so. I hope that you are not too angry with your friend. He was simply unable to go on with his work without communicating the truth to me. I have told no one else and I will not do so. However, we cannot keep the truth from you any more than he could keep the truth from me. Please write very soon and re-assure your friend Smith – he is very uneasy as he awaits word from you.

I hope that all is well with you in Colorado.

Sincerely,

Dr. Samuel Leutze.

The Kid was, at first, furious "I told him not to do that! He wanted to tell the doctor before he left – or to have me tell him. I refused."

But Cat calmed him. "Heyes had to tell the truth! Can't you understand how important it must have been to him, to make sure that the doctor understood what danger Heyes might be putting him in? Your partner is a good man. He had to do it. And the doctor is a good man, too. He won't turn you in. You know he won't."

"Alright, alright," said the Kid. "I won't take his head off through the mail. But I wish to God he had warned me, asked my permission!"

"And how, exactly," asked Cat, "could he have done that?"

Cat and the Kid began to write to Heyes every week, expensive as that was. If it made any difference at all to their distant friend, it was well worth it. Dr. Leutze's next letter told of more excellent progress, and also contained evidence of it in an enclosed note. The Kid and Cat could hardly bear to read the brief message, whose very form spoke of Heyes' agony even as he improved. It was printed in pencil in labored, staggering block capital letters that looked as though they had been not so much written as roughly drawn, with lots of erasures.

"DEAR T & C

I AM WORKING HARD. I MISS YOU.

J"

"Poor Heyes!" said Cat. "Poor, dear man. I wish I could put a hug in an envelope and send it to him!"

The Kid saw that even this pitiful note was evidence that Heyes was recovering from his injury, but it sure looked as if it was going to be an awful hard slog before he was anything like back to normal. It probably would take years, as it evidently had for Heyes' roommate. The Kid wondered what would happen to his partner, and himself, in the mean time. They were both terribly vulnerable. The doctor's letter had just reminded him of that all over again. And the Kid's and Heyes' vulnerability made Cat vulnerable, too. The Kid tried to live just as Mr. Jones of Christy's place, but he remained watchful and nervous. He was grateful for every day he had with Cat.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooo

That very afternoon that Heyes' note came, the Kid was meditatively polishing glasses at the end of the bar at Christy's place, when he saw a short, scruffy man with a handlebar mustache saunter into the place and look around curiously, surveying every face. The place was pretty full and it took awhile. Before the little man's gaze could travel down the bar to where Curry was, the Kid turned and went through the nearby door into the back room. He was glad to find Cat there. He whispered to her urgently, "Go get my saddle bags from upstairs, but wrap them in something so nobody can see what they are. Make 'em look like laundry or something. Do it fast. The new guy at the bar, the guy with the big mustache, is a bounty hunter. I don't know if he'll recognize me, but I wouldn't bet against it. I'll get Blackie and be waiting in the alley for you. Come fast and quiet and don't look nervous."

"Where will you go?" Cat asked in an anxious whisper. "Don't just vanish! Don't you dare!"

Kid swiftly whispered back, checking his pistol and putting on his coat "Don't worry, honey. I'll head up to Porterville and stay with Lom for a few days. I'll ride to Boulder and take the train from there. Wire me in our code when the guy clears off. His name is Duane Lawson – just use his initials."

Within a few minutes, the Kid had kissed Cat good-bye and ridden off with the saddle bags he always kept packed for this very reason. He didn't go too fast until he got out of town, since he didn't want to attract attention. So far as he knew, Lawson hadn't seen him and had no reason to be suspicious. But Curry couldn't take chances. Once out of town, the Kid spurred his horse into a lope on a narrow mountain path to put a couple of fast miles behind him. He kept checking behind him and looking around, watching out for ambushes. Bounty hunters didn't always work alone!

Soon the path that went his way ended and the Kid rode through the snowy mountain woods, his horse slowly breaking his way. This trip seemed both familiar and terribly strange. Curry couldn't count the number of times he had ridden out of town fleeing a bounty hunter or sheriff or posse. But before, Heyes had almost always been at his side. Now, the Kid had to watch his own back. It made him even more tense and jumpy than usual. When a hawk screamed nearby, the Curry shied like a frightened horse. Blackie was much calmer than he was!

After he had covered several miles and wasn't far from Boulder, the Kid heard a sudden warning and ducked. A gun sounded nearby in the woods and the bullet flew just over his head as Curry ducked barely in time. "Thanks, Heyes!" whispered the Kid automatically. Then he remembered that he was all alone – Heyes was thousands of miles away. It must have been his own instinct warning him. The Kid peered through the snowy rocks and trees, trying to figure out where the shot had come from. It sounded like rifle fire. It couldn't be that bounty hunter, could it? Or some other bounty hunter or a fellow outlaw? Who would be shooting at the Kid? Curry could hear someone walking farther down the slope of the mountain side he was on. Then another shot rang out. The Kid was startled, but he had too much experience with armed pursuit for this to throw him. He urged his horse along faster. But he didn't dare go faster than a trot in the rough mountain going.

A young voice shouted, "Hey, who's there?" Someone was pursuing the Kid! Curry urged Blackie faster despite the danger. The voice came again, "Hey, slow down there, your horse won't make it in this snow! Why didn't you give me a shout, I might have killed you when it was an elk I was after!"

Was it a trap? Was someone just trying to get the Kid to come out and get shot? The Kid started to panic, but then he thought, "What would Heyes do? He'd figure the odds. What are the odds that it's some guy hunting elk and what are the odds that it's a sheriff or someone else who'd know who I really am? Which are there more of out here? Hunters – there's an awful lot more hunters."

Curry shouted after the young hunter, "Sorry! You startled me so I didn't even think to shout. Here I come – hold your fire!" He and Blackie emerged from the trees into the open.

A young blonde hunter who looked kind of familiar greeted the Kid and even recognized him. "Say, it's Mr. Jones from Christy's Place! I'm glad I didn't hit you. Maybe you don't remember me, but I was in Christy's a month ago – I'm Charlie Bierstadt from Abilene! Glad to see you're alright." The Kid was glad, too!

Within the hour, the Kid was in Boulder, safe and sound. After he had stabled his horse and before he took the train, the Kid wired Lom Trevors that he was coming. So when he got into Porterville, Lom was waiting at the station for him. Seeing no one around, the Kid's sheriff friend shook the ex-outlaw's hand. "Welcome to town, Kid! Strange to see you without Joshua." Seeing a local rancher approaching, Lom had instantly switched to using his friends' aliases that he had given them himself two years before.

Trevors dropped into his office and got his deputy to watch the place so he could be free to take the Kid to his own place and get him settled in. As they got in the door of the cabin just outside town, Trevors turned to the Kid. "I'm glad you got here safe. The Teasdale gang was through here yesterday and I didn't know if they was all cleared out or not."

"Glad to miss those critters!" exclaimed the Kid as he took his coat off and parked his saddle bag on Lom's sofa, where he would be sleeping. "Heyes and I never much took to them, you might say."

"I sure as hell hope not!" exclaimed Lom. The Teasdales, at odds with their refined name, ran one of the roughest gangs in Wyoming. Where Heyes and the Kid avoided killing at all costs, the Teasdales seemed to revel in it.

Once he had gotten some hot coffee and some beans for the Kid and himself, Trevors and his guest settled in to catch up on the news. At first, they talked about Louisville, shying away from the subject that was most on both of their minds.

Lom looked appraisingly at the Kid. "So, what's this lady Cat like, Kid? Seems you're right smitten with her. She feeds you well, anyway."

The Kid chuckled. "Yeah, she's a right good little cook. And she serves a fine whiskey, too. She's as pretty as a picture and not more than 25, so what she wants with an old man like me, I don't rightly understand."

Trevors winced – he was at least ten years older than the Kid and hadn't ever settled down with a woman for more than a few months at a time. "You told her yet?"

The Kid nodded, "Yeah, Lom, I told her. She kind of figured it out on her own, anyway. She's a smart lady. Don't really need me to help run that place – just puts up with me."

"Yeah, you and that fast gun hand of yours." Trevors chuckled, "You must be real handy to have around the place. Like when anybody tries to make trouble. Why do I suspect she way more than puts up with you? You wouldn't still be there if she didn't make you feel awful welcome."

The Kid blushed happily. "Yeah, she's made feel like I got a home at last. You got to come meet her some time, Lom, when you can get time off."

"And what about Heyes?" asked Trevors over a sip of hot coffee, trying to sound casual.

The Kid shook his head worriedly, "That bullet in the head almost killed him, Lom, but not bein' able to talk – and not understandin' English when he first woke up – that almost killed him worse. He understood again in a few days, but talkin', that's another thing."

Trevors looked shocked to hear this, "Christ, Kid! You didn't tell me about him not understandin'. But your telegram said a doctor's helping him?"

Curry nodded, "Yeah, Doc Leutze taught him a word or two in Louisville – took days and days and almost did him in all over again. And then he took him back to New York City with him on the train. Heyes is doing better, but just getting' back a word at a time. Think how long that's going to take to get him back to normal! He knows, knew, more words than I ever could count. Liked to use 'em, too." The Kid sighed. "You told the governor 'bout this?"

Trevors looked thoughtful. "Nah. Didn't know that Heyes would want me to. What do you think?"

Curry shook his head, but then thought about it a minute, "You don't suppose the governor might give in and give us that amnesty, out of, well, pity, do you?"

Lom shook his head, "Pity? It's that bad? No, he ain't the pitying type. Nope. What's Heyes like, silent? I just can't picture it. Is he pitiful?"

The Kid took a breath and tried to describe his partner. "Yeah, Lom. Mostly, his eyes are all dull like a deer after you put a bullet in it and it's ready to die. And he stays away from people – can't stand to be pitied. He's doin' better, even wrote us a little note, looked worse than a first grade kid would do. But the doc says he's sleepin' anyway, which he wasn't right off. Guess he was worried about somebody catchin' on to him, there all alone. I tell you what bothers at me, too. When he was boy he always used to want to go to New York, where all the books and magazines came from. Always on about New York City and how he'd go there and be a big success at something. It was a different thing every week that he wanted to do there, but always somethin', you know. Now he's there and he can't hardly say "boo" to nobody. That's got to about drive him up the wall."

"Don't you worry, Kid." Trevors tried to sound encouraging, "Heyes is a tough guy, you'll see. He'll come through this just fine. Maybe better than before. You know, in the army they said you got to break a man first before you can make a man. Maybe this is his chance to get made again, honest this time." Curry looked kind of quizzical about that, but it kept running around in his head. What might Heyes be like, remade – remade so far away? The Kid already had evidence of Heyes' getting more honest all the time – and it didn't make his partner any too happy.

Lom went back to his office after that, shaken by what he had heard. Even if he could get amnesty for his old friends, for Heyes it might be too late to do much good. Or maybe it would be just in time to do the most good. He went back to his place that night with a bottle of whiskey. He and the Kid finished it between them.

The next day, the Kid, with a sore head, got up very late. Lom brought him a telegram from Cat. The bounty hunter was gone. Trevors was just as glad to let his old friend take the train back south. Curry hadn't exactly brought the sunniest news and disposition with him to Wyoming.

The following week, when Lom next saw Kyle from the Devil's Hole gang, he somehow failed to mention what had happened to Heyes. Said he hadn't heard word from the Kid and Heyes in a longish while.


	11. Chapter 11

A few weeks after his visit to the police, Heyes arrived at the clinic looking even neater than his usual carefully groomed self. This was a special day when he would be starting new work with a new person and he wanted to be ready. He was carefully shaved and brushed, wearing a new grey suit, white dress shirt with a starched collar, and a narrow black tie. All of this, his patron had funded. Heyes felt terribly shamed about accepting such charity, but he couldn't help it. He didn't have the funds to buy new city clothes. With so small a vocabulary, he hadn't dared to try yet to play poker with strangers and he had no other means of income. He had done some small tasks around the clinic, carrying supplies up the stairs and such, but hadn't been given any regular job that would really help to pay his way. He couldn't wear his best suit from the West every day, and in New York, his western informal clothes would have looked ridiculous. So he allowed his patrons to pay for most of his new clothes and other day to day necessities. He kept track of all his expenses that were covered by his patron. Heyes swore to himself that one day he would repay every penny to whoever it was who was paying for his treatment and living expenses. He didn't even know who the person was.

But Heyes was glad to look sharp as he started his first lesson with the clinic's tutor, Miss Warren. It helped him to have the courage to knock on her door after his usual lunch at a nearby deli, where they were used to silent, or nearly silent, customers. He was apprehensive about starting his tutoring. Heyes realized that this "studying" was probably mostly an excuse for him to practice his speech and, eventually, writing. But Heyes really hoped that he would actually learn some new content as well. It had always bothered him that he hadn't been able to finish school.

Miss Warren welcomed the stiffly nervous Mr. Smith into her office saying, "Good afternoon Mr. Smith," but the proper words were paired with a warm smile. They sat on opposite sides of a broad desk that had seen better days. Heyes felt awkward and knew that his new tutor could see it. He hadn't studied with anyone in more than twelve years – and that was just when he had worked on mathematics with the former school teacher who had been with one of his early gangs for a while. That had been a far less formal situation, to say the very least.

Miss Warren, with a direct gaze into Heyes' brown eyes, immediately addressed his concerns in a serious little speech to which he listened attentively, "Mr. Smith, I realize that it is hard for a man like you to study with a woman, or with anyone, this long after you have been out of school. You aren't used to it. But I am. I appreciate how awkward it is for you. I'm used to people who have a hard time talking. It doesn't bother me. I know how to deal with it and I'll help you to manage it, too.

You have nothing to be ashamed of – unless you fail to work hard. What happened to you to temporarily take away your speech was not your fault. I don't look down on anyone for what he can't do. I respect a man for what he can and will do. I respect you for what you are doing here. I will do everything that I possibly can to help you not only to learn how to communicate again, but to improve your knowledge and background.

If you do your work well, when you're done here you will not only have back as much as possible of what you have lost; you will also have new skills. You'll be ready to go out and earn an honest living again. Are you ready to get down to work?"

Heyes smiled shyly and nodded. He wasn't sure that he was ready to do well, but he was ready to try. Miss Warren couldn't know that he had, in fact, only rarely earned an honest living before. Nothing could have made the situation Heyes faced anything other than difficult and frightening, but Miss Warren's frank speech improved things. Now he had an idea of where he stood with this plump, conservatively-dressed lady of about his own age. Thank goodness she wasn't younger or very attractive! That would have made things much more difficult for a man struggling to regain his dignity. Miss Warren's straight-forward attitude also helped. A bubbly, over-enthusiastic young woman teacher would have been just unendurable.

Miss Warren had a stack of books on her desk. She said, "Mr. Smith, what grade did you get to in school?" When he hesitated, she continued, "I know that conditions for you out West were – irregular – so don't let it bother you if your formal education didn't go very far. That's no indication whatsoever of your intelligence or your practical knowledge." Reassured, Heyes held up all the fingers of his right hand and his left index finger, and bent his middle finger to indicate a bit of the seventh grade. Miss Warren nodded and put aside the first few books stacks in front of her, then moved the other books toward Heyes.

She continued, "So you made it to part of seventh grade?" Heyes nodded. "I understand that you read well, in addition to having an impressive command of mathematics. So let's start there. You should have no trouble looking through these mathematics text books. Just put aside any books whose content you have already mastered. When you get to books that have some things that are new to you, then look more closely. Don't take the time to read carefully and study anything yet. We'll go over anything new together later. For now, just look through these quickly and put a check mark next to the areas that you already know – that you learned and still remember. This will give me an idea of how to structure your lessons.

Don't be self-conscious about not being able to check some elementary things – those are the ones you saw the longest ago and that's a long time to remember anything. If anything interests you in particular, you might put an arrow or a star next to it or whatever mark you can make easily. I understand that writing letters is a challenge for you. In mathematics, at least, it will be easy to work around it, since I understand that you write numbers well. There's an empty office next door where you can have privacy to start looking through these. Get as far as you can in two hours, and you can look at the rest tomorrow. Alright?"

Joshua nodded and found himself smiling. He hadn't looked at a math book in so long; it would be a pleasure to study books with new material in them. He picked up the pile of books, ranging from 5th grade to 10th grade, and a pencil and carried them to the office next door. There he found a table and a comfortable arm chair and plenty of daylight for reading. Joshua raced through the pile of books so fast that there was nothing left to go through the next day. He piled the annotated books on Miss Warren's desk and gave her a wave as he left. The next day was for starting serious work with Miss Warren! He actually felt excited to think about it.

The Kid might have laughed at Heyes for looking forward to studying, but the Kid wasn't there. Heyes kind of missed getting that kind of grief, come to think of it, although he would never have admitted it.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooo

The next day Heyes was happy to get up and go to the clinic, since he knew that he would get to do some real math with Miss Warren. As he arrived he grinned at Polly at the reception desk. Her attractiveness had not exactly escaped his attention and her warm answering smile gave him cause to hope that she took note of him as well. Heyes started his day off with a trying but productive therapy session – working on some school terms like book and pen. It felt even more ludicrously like a return to the first grade than usual, but the thought of the math to come next helped to give him courage to face it.

Right after lunch, Joshua and Miss Warren began their first real session working together. Now he knocked at her door with much a much happier kind of anticipation than he had just the day before. He knew that he really would get to learn things that interested him. Getting words back was useful, but learning actual new material would be far more engaging. Miss Warren had already looked through all of the books she had given him to review. She raised her eyebrows at Joshua and asked, "Are you serious with all those check marks?" He nodded casually, ready to move on.

Miss Warren fixed an appraising gaze on her new student, "If you don't mind my asking, Mr. Smith, how old are you?"

Joshua didn't mind answering that question, although he wondered why she asked. He wrote his answer on the pad of paper in front of him and turned it to face his new teacher. Miss Warren wasn't surprised by this number. "32? So it's been, what, 19 or 20 years or more since you saw any of this material?"

Joshua shook his head. He wrote a "12" on the paper and showed it to Miss Warren. He couldn't find the vocabulary to tell her about his friend, well former friend, Robertson, the former teacher who became a gang member. What Robertson had taught him about math had come in incredibly handy in planning jobs. But it had also fascinated Heyes, and that fascination had stayed with him all these years.

"Only twelve years ago?" Joshua nodded. "When you can, please tell me how you wound up studying math outside college when you were 20! But even so, are you seriously telling me that you remember all this material? You don't have to be embarrassed at not remembering things from that long ago. If I weren't using the material all the time, I can't imagine that I would be able to retain it. I ask you again, do you really mean all of those checks?"

Joshua nodded emphatically. "Well, alright," said Miss Warren, skeptically. "I just don't understand what a cowboy would use math for, other than maybe figuring up pay or counting cows. How on earth can you remember what you don't use?"

Heyes took a deep breath and concentrated and said, "I do." He wanted to say "I did use it," but that was beyond what he had re-learned to say yet, and he even if he could have, it was safe to explain how he had used this material anyway. Mathematics had been so central to planning jobs for the Devil's Hole gang!

Heyes wrote a fairly complex algebraic equation from the seventh grade book on his pad, writing from memory. He then added a series of solutions for it, and showed it to Miss Warren. She looked at it appraisingly. "That's all quite correct. I guess you really do remember. I'm impressed. I apologize for being skeptical. It's just terribly unusual. If you were an engineer or something like that, I could understand it better."

Heyes took several deep breaths, wanting to somehow communicate to her that he had been much more than a cowboy (of course, how very much more he wouldn't have wanted to say), but the vocabulary he had back thus far got nowhere near being enough to say what he wanted to say. All he could manage was, "Not . . ." There just wasn't anything that he knew how to say that would fill that gap. He held his head in his hands and then got up and paced the room agitatedly.

Miss Warren just looked away and let him pace. When Heyes came back to the table, he dreaded seeing pity in her eyes, as he had with Julia. But Miss Warren was utterly different. She grinned playfully at him and said, "Alright, are you ready to try it again, Mr. Smith? At this stage, I'm afraid you need to give up your dignity for a while and just lean on your sense of humor. Decide the joke's on you for the moment. You'll be able to explain all the great stuff in your head to me later. I'm a patient woman."

Joshua gave his teacher a quick smile and used that vital phrase that he was so glad to have back, "Thank you!"

Miss Warren, delighted to hear her new student speaking more fluently, and to see him looking happier, smiled back and said, "You're welcome! Obviously, you aren't just the cowboy that everyone around here has decided you are. I'm curious about what you used math for, but I can wait until you have the vocabulary to tell me. That is, if you want to tell me. I'm not here to force you to do anything – only to help you to do what you want to do. You do understand that?"

Heyes nodded and grinned again at his new teacher. Thank goodness this was going to be adult to adult. Heyes was really the one in charge. This was fine with Heyes. He knew what he wanted out of an education and now, after years of waiting, he was in a position to get it!

The first day, Joshua felt very self-conscious writing out simple problems and solving them in front of a woman whom he quickly realized was highly educated and had a keen intelligence. Trying to demonstrate how easy this early material was for him, Joshua raced along writing his answers. But his writing, never very good, became even more difficult to read when he went too fast. Miss Warren had to ask him to re-write easy equations a couple of times. At last she said, with a stern look, "Stop showing off, Smith! Just do the work." Then with a smile and wink, "We'll get to the fun stuff soon. I know you're smart!"

Joshua grinned and used another of his most useful newly regained words, "Sorry!"

"Don't mention it," Miss Warren replied with sparkling brown eyes. "Get back to work, Mr. Smith!" Heyes had the distinct feeling that his new teacher liked him and she had already said that she respected him. That helped to soothe his battered ego. She might not have been particularly young or attractive, but she was a woman, and one who was quickly earning Heyes' respect.

After a couple of hours, of covering several seventh grade mathematical concepts that Heyes found coming back to him easily, Miss Warren correctly judged that even this enthusiastic student was ready for a change. She put a map of the United States on the desk and asked, "Where are you from, Mr. Smith?" The mere question wiped the eager smile off his face and replaced it with a wounded look that caught Miss Warren by surprise. She quickly tried to ease the concern on her own face, knowing that it would only make things worse for her uneasy student.

Joshua pointed at the center of Kansas, trying unsuccessfully not to think about the terrible events that had driven himself and his cousin away from their childhood home forever more than twenty years before. Miss Warren looked searchingly into her student's eyes, trying to figure out what nerve she had struck, but he turned his face away. Most of the men Miss Warren had taught had been eager to communicate about their homes and childhood years. But now she saw that she had to change the subject fast or risk damaging the connection she was building with Joshua Smith. Rather than asking anything, she would share something. She pointed at Maryland and said, "I'm from a little town in Maryland – Bethesda – named after a town in the Bible. It's a pretty little place on a creek just north west of Washington, D.C. I've never been across the Mississippi River, but I so much want to go and see the West. What states have you been in?"

This cleared away the worst of the sorrow from Joshua's face, although Miss Warren could see flickering changes of mood in his eyes and moments when his mouth tightened as he pointed out certain states and territories. A perceptible shadow crossed his face when he pointed at Wyoming Territory, Colorado, Texas, and Nevada – the places where he was wanted – though of course she had no idea what caused Heyes' tension. He relaxed a bit when he indicated places where he wasn't wanted - Montana Territory, Idaho Territory, California, Utah Territory, Arizona Territory, New Mexico Territory, Dakota Territory, Missouri, Indian Territory [now Oklahoma], and No Man's Land [the Oklahoma Panhandle]. Then he pointed south of the map to indicate that he had been in Mexico, too.

"Wow!" Miss Warren exclaimed. "You sure do get around. You make me feel so provincial. I've heard a lot about the beauties of the West, and seen a few pictures, but I've never gotten there. Have you ever been to the Yellowstone? I saw a beautiful painting of it once in Washington - a really big one that hangs in the Capitol Building."

Joshua nodded. "I wish you could tell me about it!" said Miss Warren with enthusiasm. Heyes nodded. He did, too. But there was something he could communicate about it and the thought of that painting gave him an idea about how to do it. He took up his pencil and pad. He drew a little stick figure with an out-sized easel and a brush; then he drew another figure next to the first. He pointed to that second figure and then to himself. Miss Warren puzzled for a moment, "That's you with the artist? The man who made the painting of the Yellowstone – I can't recall the name. Are you saying that you met him?" Joshua nodded eagerly. "When he was at the Yellowstone?" Joshua nodded. He wished that he could tell Miss Warren the man's name – it was the famous artist Thomas Moran. Heyes had found him a very nice guy and a wonderful artist, although the way they had met hadn't pleased Moran at all at the time. "Goodness!" Miss Warren was excited. "I'll be glad when you have enough words back to tell me all about your travels." But really, it was just as well that Heyes couldn't tell his teacher more about so many of the things that had taken him all around the West. That was decidedly the Hannibal Heyes the outlaw part of his life.

When Joshua and Miss Warren finished their lesson, she handed him a text book to look at for homework and stood by the door as he walked down the clinic's long hall toward the stairs. In fact, she stood and watched her new student until he vanished down the stairs. A soft sigh escaped her lips. Miss Warren started a bit when her friend Polly asked from behind her, "Enjoying the view?"

Miss Warren turned and smiled self-consciously at Polly, "Pardon me if I almost hope this one gets well slowly. He is a lot of fun to work with."

Polly giggled, "To look at, you mean! And a charmer, to boot!"

"Is he ever!" Beth Warren admitted, "But he's also incredibly bright. Let me tell you, he's been a whole lot more than a cowboy. He can't tell me about his past yet, of course. But for a man who didn't finish seventh grade, he's a prodigy at math. Dr. Leutze wasn't exaggerating there. There's something else going on, though. Some kind of pain. Not just the kind of loss we see so much. Something awful hurt him when he was a boy in Kansas. I think more than one bad thing happened to him in some other places, too. He's been all over the west. I wonder what he's been running away from."

Polly wasn't giggling now. She sounded unusually thoughtful. "Wounded he might be, but watch out for that charm! Maybe he hasn't just been hurt out west – maybe he's done some hurting, too. Don't get careless with that one!"


	12. Chapter 12

When Heyes and Jim got back to their room after work and therapy one day in November, Heyes pulled a deck of cards out of his saddlebags. On Jim's small table he shuffled them several times expertly with both hands, and with each hand alone in turn. Heyes' every move was perfectly precise as the cards moved back and forth in a steady, rippling stream. The New York boy looked on with interest, recognizing a master at work. Jim appreciated the fact that Joshua was exposing his expertise to him so they could work together, rather than keeping it from Jim so he could have skinned his own roommate. Heyes demonstrated to Jim the same signs that he had used with the Kid when playing poker at Christy's place, although he could actually say a couple of the words, now. Jim figured it out quickly and grinned to think of how much fun they could have together. Heyes showed Jim his gun and where he would carry it tucked under his jacket if they went to rough bars to play. "Y-you any g-g-good with that?" asked Jim, knowing that a poker game like he often played in could turn dangerous very quickly. He was disappointed when Heyes shook his head dismissively.

Jim and the man he knew as Joshua went down to the harbor one Sunday afternoon. It was cold where the wind came off the open water, but Joshua walked up and down the harbor riveted by the row of ships. This harbor was vastly larger than the one in San Francisco, the only ocean harbor he had ever seen before. Heyes loved walking along the docks with the lines of schooners and other large sailing ships towering above him. The ships leaned back and forth with the waves, their timbers and rigging creaking and straining in the wind. The ships came from everywhere around the world and their crews swarmed around the bars and dives nearby. There were Englishmen, Irishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, Spaniards, Portuguese, Dutchmen, West Indians, and many others.

Jim led his new roommate to a filthy dive set just behind the warehouses around the docks. Rough Dutch and Irish sailors and longshoremen greeted the stuttering young man gladly and a dark haired beauty of a bar girl flashed him a welcoming smile. The men greeted the nearly silent new player with gruff understanding. Soon Jim and Heyes sat down with a few sailors to start a game of five card draw. Since they all spoke different languages, they were used to communicating mostly by gestures. Heyes was careful to watch and learn about how they played around here, and not to win too much. But he did walk out with a little handful of bills.

As Jim and Heyes were headed back to Hester Street in the blackness after midnight, Heyes realized that someone was following them. He tensed and looked behind them, drawing Jim's gaze to make sure he knew what was happening. As a looming form emerged from around a corner, Heyes drew his gun and swiftly cocked it. Their pursuer was a burly longshoreman who hadn't been in the poker game, but had been in the dive watching. He gave Heyes a look of respect and melted back into the dockside shadows. Jim starred at Joshua and said "I thought you said you weren't any good with that thing! That's the fastest draw I've ever seen." Heyes shrugged his shoulders modestly, keeping the gun in his hand just in case. Jim said admiringly, "I'm g-g-glad you're on m-m-my side!"

Jim and Heyes soon got to be regulars around the docks where they could play the sailors at poker and black jack, and enjoy a few lovely girls when they won enough to buy them drinks. There was one pretty blonde named Fiona with whom Heyes got on particularly well, especially when he was winning and could afford to treat her lavishly. Heyes, even with few words, knew how to establish his authority with the dock side crowd. Mostly, his confident eyes and stance, and his winning ways did it. But his swift work with his Colt and his knife came in handy more often than he would have liked.

Heyes was glad to be able to win fairly consistently at the tables down by the docks. With his new supply of pocket money he bought a beautiful Christmas card chromolithographed with a snow scene and sent it to Louisville as the holiday approached. When Cat opened the card, she saw that it was signed with the lone initial "J" in labored pencil. Cat burst into tears. They had hoped that Heyes could have come home to Louisville for Christmas, but a letter from Dr. Leutze informed them that there had been no one available to accompany him back and he wasn't able to come so far on his own yet. Lovely presents arrived from Heyes – a bright silk Chinese scarf for Cat and a handsome new holster for the Kid. Cat wondered how Heyes could afford such things when he had no source of income that she knew of. He wasn't turning back to crime, was he? The Kid had a feeling that he knew the source of Heyes' riches, and crime wasn't it. Poker was.


	13. Chapter 13

For his Christmas present from Colorado, Heyes got a book about the history of the West. Heyes was amused to note the marker his friends had put in a page that mentioned that pair of notorious Wyoming outlaws, Kid Curry and Hannibal Heyes. But really, his favorite gift was a long letter filled with news about Christy's place. The Kid and Cat had gone to a lot of trouble to fill it with details of all the people who came and went and to describe the snowy mountains around them and the stove-warmed rooms of Christy's so that Heyes would feel almost like he was there with them. In fact, he felt terribly lonesome sitting by himself reading the letter in his tiny, chilly, dark tenement room.

Jim surprised Heyes with an invitation to come to his family's Hanukkah celebration. Heyes had been right: Jim was actually a Jew from a European family who was covering up his family background with an assumed name to help him avoid too much gang attention. His real name was Joachim Gelbfisch, which was way too much of a mouthful for Heyes to say yet. It was even hard for Jim. Heyes wished that he could tell Jim who he really was, but considering Jim's interest in western outlaws, and his enthusiasm and youth, it was just too dangerous. Besides, Heyes still couldn't say his own real name, although he had at least learned to introduce himself with his alias.

At Jim's family's place, Heyes used more of his beginning Yiddish than his small bits of English as he played with Jim's sister's kids and their cousins, and visited with adults whose names sounded terribly foreign to him. The food was wonderful and the family welcomed their gentile guest warmly, gladly teaching him their holiday customs. He had never heard of a menorah before, much less seen one lit or heard the beautiful prayers and singing that accompanied the ceremony. He was surprised by how deeply he was moved by witnessing these simple but profound acts that had such meaning for his hosts and that were utterly new to him. Of course, Heyes had always enjoyed children; he gladly got down on the floor to play dreidel with the kids. One of his greatest regrets as an outlaw had always been that he had so little contact with children. Now, he began to realize how much it would mean to him when, or if, amnesty allowed him to reconnect with the family life he had missed so desperately since the violent events that had effectively ended his childhood.

Heyes felt bad that he didn't have any presents to bring for the children or any wine or other such token for his hosts, since he hadn't expected the invitation. But Heyes had another thought that worked out well. He brought his guitar and played and sang a few cowboy and Civil War songs for his hosts Even the newest immigrants could sing along with _Home Sweet Home_. Heyes could sing just fine, even words he couldn't yet speak, if he had known the songs before he had been shot. His hosts taught him some of their songs and he played along, though singing in Yiddish was beyond him. There wasn't room in the crowded tenement to dance, but they promised that when it was warm enough to dance in the streets, they would teach him some of their dances.

Heyes found one of Jim's cousins particularly interesting. She was a stunningly lovely girl named Devora. She had flashing dark eyes and long, wavy black hair and the loveliest smile Heyes had ever seen. She patiently taught him more Yiddish and they enjoyed talking a little together and singing together as Heyes played his guitar. But when Devora's parents began to eye Heyes uneasily, he backed off. They might welcome a gentile into their home, but not into their family.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooooooooooo

As the winter days passed and Heyes advanced in his lessons, Miss Warren introduced him to a place that quickly became one of his favorites in New York - the Astor Library. It was quiet and elegant and full of a variety of people, from teenagers to old men and women. They all had in common an interest in learning, whether through colleges classes or on their own. People couldn't take books home, but they could read in the library. They sat on leather padded chairs around elegant polished wood tables.

Heyes could read about anything that interested him – like history and geography. He especially enjoyed reading about exotic places that were new to him. He couldn't help taking a special interest in South America, where he and the Kid had so often threatened to vanish. Then there was poetry - he developed a real fondness for John Donne's witty love poems, wishing he had a girl to try them on, and the power of speech to say all the lovely words. And he read engineering, and, of course, mathematics. Even while it was impossible for him to write out anything that he was thinking and learning, he enjoyed reading by the hour. He couldn't help wondering, however, what the people there would think if they could know who he really was. It was quite a change from the rough docks and the dusty western bars where Heyes had spent so much time!

Heyes was particularly entranced by reading Shakespeare's plays and pored over them many an evening. As the spring advanced, Miss Warren and Polly surprised Heyes and a couple of other patients one day by taking them to a performance of _Much Ado About Nothing_. Heyes had a wonderful time, but it also reminded him of what he couldn't yet do. The man who used to have a silver tongue was certainly not up to verbal sparring like Benedick engaged in with the lovely Beatrice. Besides, Heyes had never dated a woman with such a ready wit as that! He wished he could afford to go to the theater more often.


	14. Chapter 14

"Do you want to write another letter to your friends in Colorado, Mr. Smith?" asked Miss Warren.

"No!" said Joshua sourly. "You know I can't." With remembering how to say words, it might take time and be difficult, but he could do it eventually. For words he had known before, he could usually find them buried in his memory, or if not he could learn them anew. He could make progress. With writing letters, as opposed to numbers, he had tried over and over, but he never improved at all from one try to the next. Despite reading well, he couldn't name any letters, he didn't know the sound any letter made, he couldn't spell any word, and he couldn't write any letter without a model.

"You can try, can't you? You'll never get your writing back if you don't try. Come on – here's the sheet of letters. Here's the pencil and paper. Do you remember what letter we start with to write DEAR?" Miss Warren tried to smile encouraging, but her student could tell that it wasn't coming naturally to her.

"No!" answered Joshua. He wasn't just being difficult – he really couldn't remember any letters from one day to the next or even one minute to the next. He did try, but he simply couldn't do it.

"Here it is – a D." Miss Warren pointed to the fourth letter on the sheet.

Joshua sighed and tried to copy the letter, looking back at the model again and again. He finally achieved a very rough version of what could only charitably be interpreted as a capital D.

"And here's the next letter in the word dear – E."

Joshua struggled at it uselessly for a while and stopped. He looked up and groped for a word, but he was stymied in that, also.

"I'll bet I know what you're after," said Miss Warren with a faint smile, "a good curse! Dr. Leutze and Dr. Goldstein would never teach you curse words, but a man needs curse words now and then, doesn't he?"

"Yes!" answered Joshua with feeling.

"Then here you go, Mr. Smith, Damn! Is that a good one for you? Damn! God damn it!" She cursed with feeling and looked up to see the effect.

Joshua nodded and fought back a grin. He wrestled for a while and probed his memory, but soon he, too was able to come out with a good strong "Damn!"

"Very good! I hope that did you some good. Now you have that good, solid curse word whenever you need it. Now back to work," Miss Warren remained business-like despite this unscholarly diversion.

Joshua tried again on the E and went on to try the A, but then he just stopped and threw the pencil across the room. "No!" he yelled. "I can't do it! Never!" He got up to leave the room, but Miss Warren blocked his way.

"When you're done throwing your little temper tantrum . . ." Miss Warren began to crisply correct her student as she had before, and to shame him into trying again, but she stopped mid-sentence. "No – I can't do it either! I can't keep pretending that this is working when it isn't and we both know it!"

Joshua stared at his teacher in shock. He had never seen her like this before – she seemed to be fighting back tears. "We're supposed to stay objective and detached, but I can't do it. I can't stand it! It isn't fair to use you as some kind of laboratory animal for experiments. You're a man, damn it! You're exactly right – you will never write again."

Joshua's mouth flew opened. He was staggered. Now he was the one fighting back tears. If he could never write again, it would be the end of many of his dreams, and it would make countless aspects of life far more difficult. It would confine him to either menial work or being dependent on his friends. This would deal a mortal blow to the life he wanted for himself and any family he might ever have.

"Or you'll probably never write again. There is one chance. It doesn't work very often, but we can try. Dr. Leutze wanted me to wait, but I think you're more than ready for it now." Miss Warren gazed keenly at Joshua, gauging his attitude.

"Anything," said Joshua with determination. "I will try."

"Good! Mr. Smith," then he student interrupted her . . .

"Try Joshua," he suggested.

"Alright Joshua, if you call me Beth." Miss Warren seemed pleased.

"Beth," Heyes said tentatively, "please go on . . . sorry I. . ."

Beth Warren smiled sadly at Joshua. "Not a problem Joshua. You're right; we know each other too well to stay on a formal basis. But as I was saying, there is one possible way, that we know of, to get around your problem. That will be to teach you the alphabet and how to write all over again just as if you had never learned in the first place, just as you were taught when you were five or six. It doesn't usually work, but sometimes a patient who has lost the ability to write because that part of his brain is injured can actually learn again and put that learning in a new, uninjured place, or we guess that is what is happening. It is, well, humiliating, but then you've put up with a lot of humiliation in this place already. Will you give it go, with me?"

"Yes," answered Joshua, hopefully, "If you help."

Beth nodded, "I'll be with you the whole way – no other tutor or therapist or doctor will be involved. Only two people will see you doing this – you and me. Let's get going. No time like the present! We have a lot of letters to work on."

Heyes took a deep breath. He was going to hate this, there was no denying it. But it wouldn't be as bad as enduring a life without writing. Of course, he might get both – humiliation and failure. Beth hadn't guaranteed anything.

Beth Warren took out a pad of paper and a wide-nibbed fountain pen so she could demonstrate words to Joshua. "OK, this is an A. It's the first letter in the alphabet and it sounds like A or ah. It's the last letter in your own first name – see? And the second letter in my last name – here it is. A, or its Latin version, alpha, is also the first word in the Latin alphabet. That's why it's called the alphabet – the first Latin letter is alpha and the second is B, beta. Let's work on the sounds of A and then you can write it," and on she went. Heyes smiled at her with the deepest gratitude. She was not, after all, treating him quite like a five-year-old. She was adding in adult knowledge that he would actually find interesting – he was learning some Latin along with his English alphabet. It gave him something other than humiliation to look forward to. He watched her write a capital A a few times, and then took up the fountain pen to carefully try it himself.

Would this work? It would take time to find out, but Joshua Smith would give it his very best try. Either he would learn to write again, and write for himself, or he would have to get someone else to write for him for the rest of his life. The first was hard, but the second was, for him, impossible.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooo

The occasional note from Dr. Leutze arrived at Christy's place updating them on Heyes' continued good progress as winter turned into spring. Cat and the Kid wrote back, letters full of stories from Colorado. But there were no more notes from Heyes in that pained pencil printing. This worried and puzzled Curry, but he didn't ask about it in his letters. He didn't want to take any chances of embarrassing Heyes.

In May a letter arrived at the saloon from New York. This one was addressed in unfamiliar writing – a beautiful, flowing copper-plate hand even finer than Dr. Leutze's. The letter read:

"Dear Thaddeus and Cat:

May I please visit you the last two weeks of June? The clinic will be closed then. I can take the train west if you can put me up. I can tell you about New York, if you can wait for words. I cannot say much and what I say is real slow. Thank you for all you have done for me.

I look forward to your reply and hope to see in June.

Yours,

Joshua Smith"

The signature of Joshua Smith was in the same unknown, elegantly precise hand as the letter. Heyes' writing had always been pretty bad. He had never had a chance to learn really proper penmanship in school and had no patience for what he had learned. The Kid thought that Heyes must have gotten frustrated with his own slow capital letters and dictated the letter to someone at Dr. Leutze's clinic. The Kid could not help but notice that most of the letter was in words of one syllable, or at most two. Once he pointed it out, Cat saw what he meant, but she had never known the old silver-tongued Heyes. She didn't appreciate how unusual such simple, even awkward, language was for him. Heyes had always loved learning and using new words. Before being shot, his vocabulary had been large, for someone with so little academic background. The Kid wondered why Heyes hadn't even signed the letter himself. They would have valued even just that painful J. It hurt the Kid to see Heyes pleading to stay with them, and asking for patience with his slow speech.

Christy's had become the Kid's home now, more than any place since Devil's Hole. He thought of the place as Heyes' home, too. If only Heyes could, and would, come and stay in it! Of course Cat and the Kid wrote right back and told "Joshua" that he was welcome to come to Louisville any time and stay at Christy's for as long as he liked. His speech didn't have to be perfect or even good. Their home was his home and always would be, at least, as they didn't dare to say in print, until the wrong law man or bounty hunter or fellow outlaw came along.


	15. Chapter 15

On a warm, clear day in mid June, Kid Curry waited at the dusty little Louisville train station. He watched anxiously for the train coming from the east. He stood, shifting from leg to leg. He kept peering into the distance as if looking for it would make the train come faster. Or maybe slower. He was kind of nervous about seeing Heyes again. Would he be like now that he could talk again, if only a little? There the train was at last; the smoke visible in the distance and the whistle echoing while the mountains still hid the train itself. Then the engine was pulling in slowly, clouds of steam rolling along its sides. A familiar form jumped off before the train had quite stopped. Heyes' old battered black cowboy hat was on his head and his bulging saddle bags slung over his shoulder. The two partners shared a bear hug. "God – I - missed - you - Kid!" whispered Heyes haltingly into his partner's ear. Curry caught his breath, startled to hear his partner speak his nick name for the first time in so many months.

Aloud, knowing that they could be overheard by a man and woman nearby getting off the train, Joshua said, slowly, fighting for each word (particularly that long first one that he had practiced so carefully at the clinic) "Thaddeus, I am glad to see you! How's Christy's place?"

"Oh, Joshua, you are a sight for sore eyes! Or more like a sound for sore ears!" exclaimed the Kid. "Christy's is doing great. We've got two new people – things are so busy." Curry mentioned this, as he could see that Heyes understood instantly, because any new people could pose a danger to them both. Anyone who didn't know them well enough to be loyal in a pinch could easily betray them. Heyes would need to be especially careful.

But the re-united partners found far more enjoyable things to communicate even as Heyes struggled for spoken words.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooo

Back at the saloon and hotel, Cat Christy was dusting the saloon's front room, even though every mote of dust was long gone. Thaddeus had left a little while ago to meet the train at the station. Soon he and his partner would be back. Cat felt nervous about meeting Heyes again, now that he had a voice. What would his voice sound like? The voice of a gang leader - of a bank robber - of a fugitive - of a nice young man - of a genius at math - of a clinic patient - of Joshua Smith - of Hannibal Heyes.

Then she heard two voices getting louder and coming closer; a very familiar tenor and a totally unfamiliar baritone. They were singing together loudly and raucously, almost as if they were drunk. "How dare they drink at someone else's establishment!" thought Cat. But no, of course they weren't drunk. There hadn't been time. They were just very happy. They were singing an old Civil War song that Cat guessed they must have sung together as boys. The two men sang in unison:

We look like men, we look like men, we look like men of war!

[Thaddeus's familiar tenor sang solo a series of notes up] I-in ar-my dress

[Then the unfamiliar baritone soloed the melody back down again] In un-i-form

[Then the two voices came back into unison as they arrived stamping the dust off their feet on the mat at the front door.] We look like men of war!

Then there were the two men coming in the door, arms over each other's shoulders, laughing, with enormous grins on their faces. Heyes was in his familiar navy shirt, embroidered vest, and soft brown pants and boots, with the battered black hat on his head and his gun on his lip. The wrinkles in his shirt, vest, and pants showed that these clothes had spent most of the past months folded up in his bag. He couldn't exactly go around New York City looking like a fugitive from a Wild West show. The piano player and bar tender were quickly at the door, shaking Smith's hand while their returning friend said with painful deliberation, "Ted! Joe! Glad to see you!" The normally laconic men were effusive in their praise of the formerly silent man's returning speech.

Then Joshua turned to Cat.

He gazed into her eyes for a long moment smiling ever more broadly, his dimple deepening. Finally he said softly, one difficult word at a time, "Cat, it is good to see you and to be back . . . home! Thank you!" They shared a long, warm hug. As Cat saw Joshua's smile, a smile she had never seen before, and heard the throaty voice she had never heard before, she felt like she had never really met this man. She had come to know Heyes' pain very well, but as Jed had told her nine months before, she had no real acquaintance with the man himself. She threw her arms around a virtual stranger, who hugged her warmly back. Now perhaps, Cat hoped, the Hannibal Heyes that the Kid had told her so much about was on his way back.


	16. Chapter 16

That night after dinner the three of them, Cat, Curry, and Heyes, sat on rocking chairs on the hotel porch in the soft early summer air. A mockingbird was singing through its crisp, metallic, repertoire from the roof of the nearby livery stable. The unpaved street was quiet. Peggy the saloon girl had left the place some months before to marry a love-struck mine owner who lived in Boulder, so Heyes had no girl beside him. The two partners and the Kid's lady had exchanged only a few words here and there between bites during dinner. It was hard for Heyes to talk and eat at the same time. For him, speech required a lot of concentration. "Well, partner, you going to tell us about New York?" asked Curry.

"Please . . . be patient." Said Heyes uncertainly, pausing and licking his lips. He felt as nervous as a little boy reciting in school for the first time. It was funny that he could sing without the least hitch – at least a song that he already knew well. But talking for more than a few words, and now in front of these people he cared about so much – that was a different thing.

"Not a problem, Joshua. We've been waiting so long to hear your voice at all – a few minutes here and there just don't signify." said the Kid.

"On the train east," started Heyes, slowly. "I didn't know what to do. A pretty girl tried talk to me and I couldn't say a word. I . . . I . . . [Heyes shook his head - he had to give up on what he had wanted to say.] She thought I was rude – or crazy. Looked past me . . . rest of the trip."

"The more fool, she, then!" Said Cat firmly. "Passing up the company of a handsome young man just because he couldn't chatter like a squirrel!" They all three laughed at the foolish girl. Joshua grinned – it was good to be home where they understood him and didn't mind the pauses and gaps while he groped for words and often couldn't get the word he wanted. People had been good to him at Leutze's clinic, and Jim was a good friend. But their tiny tenement room wasn't really a home. Heyes, like the Kid, was starting to feel like Christy's place might really be home – more even than Devil's Hole had ever been.

Heyes went on and told them, slowly and in simple words, with lots of hesitations, about his trip east. He told how he had spotted One-ear Carver, the notorious Montana outlaw, on the train, "I stared him down, Jed! He ran out of there so fast! I didn't have to talk at all, thank God, since I sure could not!" The Kid thought, correctly, that Carver must have been sure that the Kid himself was nearby and would have made it go very hard for him if he made trouble for the infamous leaders of the Devil's Hole gang. The trio of friends chuckled over how Heyes had fooled such a dangerous man.

As the June days went by, sitting on the hotel's porch, or sitting together in the back rooms where they could speak more freely, Heyes told the Kid and Cat about the bits of memories that he could fit into words. There was so much more than he could manage to talk about, yet.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooooooooooo

The next day was beautiful and sunny. Up in the mountains just outside of town it was cool and pleasant. Heyes and the Kid went over to Christy's Place's stable and saddled up their horses, Clay and Blackie, and rode off together. They made the excuse of looking for a plump deer for Cat's table, but the pair so enjoyed just riding along side by side for the first time in ten months that no other reason was needed. The craggy mountain slopes, crested with snow, rose spectacularly above them, and the pine trees cast lovely shadows around them. Wild flowers of all colors bloomed in a wild meadow as the pair rode past, enjoying the delicate perfume. When a deer and her fawn trotted across the path, the boys somehow failed to get a rifle fixed on them before they vanished into the sun-speckled woods. If Heyes was a bit quieter than usual, then it was all to the good so far as the Kid was concerned. They could just drink in the scenery in peace. Or as much peace as Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry could ever enjoy riding together in the West.

The Kid seemed perfectly relaxed, but he kept a natural and quiet look out around them, as he had for over a decade. Heyes, feeling the threat that always hovered over him coming closer than it had usually seemed in New York, looked around a bit nervously now and then when he heard a stick break or a tree-branch move. But then he felt foolish for being so jumpy when he saw a fox run by or felt the breeze that had stirred the woods. The pair rode higher and higher up the mountain slopes, feeling the breeze get cool. A hunting hawk circled past them not more than a foot above their shoulder's off into the valley the trail overlooked.

"It's strange, Kid. . ." started Heyes slowly, finally breaking the silence, when he was interrupted himself.

"So, the mighty Hannibal Heyes returns to the West." said a strong, gruff voice Heyes didn't recognize. "Don't try anything!" the voice warned sternly, "Turn around nice and slow, hands in the air."

Heyes started hard. It had been a long time since anyone had snuck up on him that way and he felt both foolish and damn worried. "Aw Christ!" he thought, breaking into a cold sweat, "Here I am thinking we're just out for a nice ride and nothing will happen, and then this guy is gonna up and shoot us or turn us in, or both! And I can't even try to talk him out of it." Heyes followed directions carefully, looking over his shoulder to see a tall, lean man in an old fashioned buckskin jacket standing on the edge of the woods holding a rifle on him. For some reason, the Kid seemed not at all nervous about this. Without putting his hands up, Curry just turned his horse around placidly and looked at the man with the gun. Heyes, seeing that the man didn't shoot the Kid, turned his horse too so he could look at the stranger without getting a crick in his neck.

The man with the rifle stared at Heyes, seeming to ignore the Kid. "So, you're talking again. That mean you're ready to cause trouble again, too?"

"No, sir," answered Heyes as politely as he could with a rifle trained on his heart. "No trouble."

"Well, that's respectful enough. Can I put this away Kid, do you think?" asked the stranger, without looking away from Heyes.

"I expect you can, Cavanaugh. I think you've put the fear of God into him – or the fear of Cavanaugh, anyhow," chuckled the Kid.

Cavanaugh grinned and rested his rifle on the forest floor. Heyes realized then that he had never heard the man cock the gun. Curry's peculiar friend had never intended to shoot Heyes at all.

"Heyes," said the Kid with a grin, "this is my friend Bill Cavanaugh. He used to ride with the Mecklenburg bunch. You remember them? He got sick of it and came out here for some peace and quiet."

Heyes reached down from the saddle to shake the tall former outlaw's hand, since it was proffered. "Sure. I remember. Thanks for not . . ." Heyes paused perforce – all the vocabulary for things like shoot or kill was beyond what he had re-learned. He flushed in embarrassment, hoping the forest shadows would hid it.

Cavanaugh grinned, his tanned face wrinkling in fine lines all around piercing blue eyes that sparkled in a sunbeam, "That's fine, Heyes. I like to make sure of folks is all. You know how it is for a former outlaw."

"Sure do. Glad to meet you!" Heyes answered, painfully conscious of the pause before each word.

"Well, you'd better get down and come into my cabin for a spell, you boys. Specially you, Heyes. Long as you been out of the saddle, you're gonna be feelin' it for sure." Heyes dismounted a bit clumsily, rubbing a protesting thigh muscle after he landed and started to limp after Cavanaugh into the woods. The woodman was right about that! They left their horses ground tied in a little clearing just off the path as Cavanaugh led Heyes and Curry towards his small but neat cabin not far from the little path. Heyes felt sure that the Kid had ridden up here on purpose to see his friend, carefully not telling Heyes about Cavanaugh so he could have the fun of seeing his partner about jump out of his skin. The man had probably made the path they had been riding on himself, since it led right past his well-hidden cabin that was half built into the mountain rocks.

Cavanaugh's cabin was surprisingly comfortable and well-outfitted, with cunningly fitted shelves and drawers for everything a man could want. The Kid brought in his saddle bags, in which he had carried some tea, a bag of sugar, and a few boxes of rifle shells for their host. Obviously, their arrival had been no accident. Cavanaugh smiled at Curry, "Thanks for the supplies, Kid! I appreciate your savin' me the trouble of goin' into town. Like it better out here by myself, gen'rally. But some folks comin' by is a real pleasure, when they're friends."

And Heyes felt like they were all friends, almost before he knew it. Cavanaugh fixed them some hot tea and surprisingly good biscuits with blueberry jam he had made himself from berries picked nearby. The three old outlaws found plenty to talk about. A happy hour went by and then Heyes and the Kid realized they had better be on their way before they worried Cat, or kept their kind host from the chores that beset all frontiersmen. Heyes enjoyed their talk, especially since Cavanaugh politely ignored the many pauses and gaps in his speech. "He's a good man." said Heyes as they went to get their horses.

"He is, that," replied the Kid. What he didn't say was nevertheless clear to his partner - They aren't all like that! You're back in the West, Heyes – back in danger. Remember to watch your back – and mine."


	17. Chapter 17

One day as June was nearly over, and Heyes had only a couple of days before he had to leave his Colorado home, the Kid and Heyes went fishing at a rocky local creek. The sun was hot outside the little valley, but there by the creek the trees filtered out the sunlight and a breeze came off the cool flowing water. As the Kid and Heyes sat side by side on the bank, trailing their lines in the water, the Kid asked Heyes, "Who wrote that last pretty letter for you? I thought it was engraved stationary when I first saw it. Does anyone really write as elegant as that?"

Heyes looked at the stream. He had been dreading this conversation and where it might lead He paused a long time before answering. Finally he said, "That's me, Kid."

Curry's handsome jaw dropped. "You are pulling my leg, Heyes. I know your writing and you couldn't do that in a million years."

Heyes took a couple of breaths and messed with his fishing line as he tried to explain, "Yeah I can, now. I, well, I had to."

The Kid was baffled. "What do you mean, you had to?"

Heyes tried to explain, fighting his tiny vocabulary and just the sheer difficulty of what he wanted to communicate. "I don't . . . Kid, some things – words - I just hunt for in my in mind. I hunt. God, it's hard! It can take hours, days, weeks - then – it's there. Or it's not. And I have to force it in – if I can."

"Sounds like a – weird feeling – hunting around in your head like that," said the Kid, horrified at this view into Heyes' wounded mind. He wondered where this was leading.

"Yeah." said Heyes. "W-." he stopped and shook his head. "That one, that word, you said – it's not – there – yet."

"Weird you mean? You can hear it and you know what it means, but you can't say it? That is weird!" the Kid was starting to get an idea of what his partner was up against.

"Yeah." Heyes then groped for a word he didn't have yet and gave up. "I don't know why. It's just how it is. I hunt for words. I find them . . . or not." another word he needed wasn't there yet. "But- not writing. Numbers, fine. Writing letters - was – was – gone." Heyes looked into the water, only his profile to his partner. The Kid was just as glad not to see what would have been in Heyes' eyes. To realize that something that big and important was gone for good sounded totally terrifying. Curry gave Heyes all the time he needed to go on. How had he gotten from nothing to writing this elegant new hand?

"I had to learn it – all - new. Like I was five. You know." The Kid did not remotely know what that would have been like for a proud, smart man like Heyes to go through learning to write all over again with some stranger teaching him. He didn't want to know.

"But now – I have – writing – again. It's slow. But it's better." It grieved the Kid to hear Heyes have to switch words when he couldn't manage the one he wanted. He hoped it wouldn't always be like that.

"What was it your mother said – 'There's no great loss without some small gain.'? 'Least ways now I can read your writing!" The Kid hoped the joke would help and not hurt. Heyes chuckled ruefully.

"Yeah," He said softly, "Can't tease me 'bout my writing no more." The Kid thought the bad grammar sounded forced, where it wouldn't have been a year before. He was right. Heyes was, like Lom Trevors had said, starting to be remade, far from his old home. Heyes would never talk quite the way he had before – and this wasn't entirely a bad thing. He was relearning language from educated people who spoke more properly than almost anyone he had known out west.

"When do you think you'll be done at the clinic, come back home for good?" asked the Kid. He wanted to be sure that Heyes knew that he was wanted back – not just as a guest, but always. A few changes in Heyes were nothing that would keep them apart. If Heyes could cope with so much that was new and strange, the Kid would do his best to deal with it, too.

Heyes smiled just for a second. He knew that the Kid and Cat would welcome him back, yet it was good to actually hear it said. But the Kid's question was a hard one for Heyes, "I don't know. The – the" Heyes groped for a word that wasn't there yet. He settled for second or third best. "The – work – with Doc - it will take a long time. I don't know how long. I don't know how far I can get and still have support. You know – money to stay. How close I can get - before it's - over." The Kid knew what Heyes meant – how close to normal – how close to his old, silver-tongued self. He might have to stop his work at the clinic before he really was back to normal, if his patron thought it wasn't worth supporting him any longer, or if he ran into some kind of wall on progress.

The Kid pulled in a fat catfish, took it off his line and put it into his fishing creel. He re-baited his hook and threw it back into the water. He wondered whether Heyes would always have long pauses and gaps when he spoke. Would words always come so slowly? Would he always have to stop and change words when he got to one he wanted and couldn't manage? The answer seemed terribly likely to be "yes." It must be awful for his partner, he felt. For a man who used to be a leader, who had often led by winning arguments or by charming people with his famous eloquence this was a loss of something really vital. But the Kid's partner was fighting like mad to get as close to normal as he could. Curry was starting to get a glimpse of how bitterly hard that struggle was, and how very frightening. Heyes was putting up a terribly brave struggle that his partner admired more than he dared to try to say. It was hard for the Kid to be in Louisville waiting for Heyes and worrying about sheriffs and bounty hunters and whether he would have to ride away and never return. But it was infinitely harder, right now, to be Heyes in New York. Every minute of the day he was fighting for his life – for what his future life would be like.


	18. Chapter 18

The day before Heyes was going to take the train back to New York, Heyes found the Kid in the back room at Christy's Place, folding linen on a work table. A shaft of sunshine blazed through a high window to illuminate the growing pile of fragrantly clean, freshly ironed napkins. It was a disconcertingly domestic way to see his famous gunman cousin. It reminded Heyes that he wasn't the only who was learning things and making adjustments right now. He had never thought of the Kid as a potential businessman, but that was really what he was getting to be, if only he could get that damned amnesty. And he was good at it, too. Christy's place was thriving with Kid half in charge. Heyes couldn't avoid the knowledge that his own presence was a danger to his partner's, and to Cat's, safety and happiness. Kid Curry was a whole lot easier to spot with Hannibal Heyes at his side. Without Heyes, he was just a good looking guy co-managing a bar and hotel. With that dark-haired, dimpled man beside him, he was half of the most wanted pair of outlaws in the west.

Heyes silently touched the Kid's arm to ask his attention. The Kid stopped his work and looked up at Heyes, who looked very serious and nervous. The dark eyes were burningly intense, their narrowed pupils darting back and forth erratically. Heyes' speech was even more halting than usual as he wrestled more with the meaning of what he had to say than with the words themselves. "Kid – I'm fine – you know. I'm fine now. Don't worry."

"You are not fine! You aren't anything like fine!" the Kid retorted, putting down the napkin he had been folding and looking up at his partner with an unusually open show of concern on his face. "I do worry! You will be fine. [He wasn't sure of that, but he said it to help it to be so.] You'll get all better. But you aren't fine yet!"

Heyes was determined. Pausing heavily before every word, he choked out, "You don't have to wait for me to get well, to get back. Be safe. Keep Cat safe. Go – with Cat if it gets bad. If the law comes. I'm fine. I can make it – alone." It was a relief to him to get out this last awful word – the worst word between partners.

The Kid was equally adamant on his side, "You are a tough buy and you can make it through pretty near anything, but you are sure not fine! I said it and I meant it. Are you sayin' you don't want to be my partner anymore? Do you want to be left alone?" The Kid couldn't desert Heyes, not the way he was! That would be a rotten thing to do! What kind of guy did Heyes think he was?

Heyes shook his head. "You help me . . . so much. I can't help you . . . I just put you in . . . in . . . Damn! It's not fair . . . not now. I'm fine. And I go and leave you and leave you stuck in . . . in . . . Damn! Please! You go if . . . if . . . Damn! Oh, God damn it!" Heyes, gasping and fighting for every word, tears squeezing out of his eyes, torn between sorrow and frustrated fury, just couldn't get the words he needed.

Now Curry's voice was softer. He was never going to argue this proud and stubborn man into submission but he had to put his mind at ease. The Kid would just have to lay it on the line in a way that he, like most men, cringed at, "Heyes, you have to go to away to New York to get well. We understand, Cat and I! Don't you always say that friends don't do things for each other to be paid back? Alright, I've been helping you when you needed it. You've always helped me, when I was shot or sick or just plain stupid. Since we were boys. You aren't just my partner; you're my friend - my family. My only real family! I need you, too! You'll be back all well again soon and we'll stick together just like we always have. So no, I'm not going to leave you, no matter how long it takes you to heal up. If I ride off – I'll let you know where and you come, too. Alright?"

Heyes gave him a crooked, uncertain smile, "Alright. Alright. Thank You! We're still . . . still . . . Oh damn my God damned head!"

"Still partners, Heyes. Yeah," said the Kid, "Don't worry, you'll get there. You'll find that word - and all the others."


	19. Chapter 19

On the last morning of June, Hannibal Heyes bid a warm farewell to the piano player and bar tender and the saloon girls and Bruce. He so glad at last to have words of thanks and farewell for them. If his words were only few and slow, they were nonetheless heartfelt and all knew it. But to Cat his words were particularly hard and valued. It was so hard for Cat and the Kid to let the third of their close trio go so far away so soon. Cat felt that she was just starting to get to know her man's partner. Heyes, standing by the swinging door dropped his saddle bags and gave her a shy, sad smile and a hug. He was glad, at least, to be able to say something rather than bidding her good-bye silently as he had last October, "Thank you, Cat! Thanks for e . . . Thanks! Good-bye! For now." Heyes gave Cat a warm hug and a kiss. She really had become almost like family to Heyes – as close to a sister-in-law as he would ever have. Heyes, as he stepped away into the street, the Kid at his side, turned back for a last look, for now. He silently promised to return to this place and to these people.

Heyes and the Kid walked silently side by side toward the tiny Louisville train station, both dressed in their accustomed western gear. It was nostalgically like countless walks they had made together, although they weren't carrying saddles or rifles this time as they had before. On this trip, Heyes, in spite of any risk, had decided that he wouldn't change into his eastern duds until after the train crossed the Mississippi. He wanted to savor the West as long as he could.

As the boys neared the station they looked to see if they would have the platform to themselves for a reasonably private farewell. But there was a tall, lean figure waiting in the dark shadow under the awning. As Heyes and Curry got close they saw a wink of silver on the man's chest. It was the sheriff! They could see him looking toward them and not moving. Heyes would not be able to catch the train without meeting up with the very last person he wanted to see.

Heyes and the Kid stopped in their tracks and exchanged worried glances. The Kid saw Sheriff Wilde nearly every day around Christy's. Or he had until, for some reason the last two weeks - the period of Heyes visit. Yet the two men had never spoken. Knowing almost for certain – though only almost - that Sheriff Wilde was consciously avoiding doing anything about the town's resident former outlaw and his partner, the Kid had never wanted to force the man to confront him. The Kid felt a bit more secure after he had saved the sheriff's life, and more so after the sheriff had married the richest widow in town, which had made the $20,000.00 reward on the pair pretty much academic for him. So Sheriff Wilde was probably about as safe a sheriff for the pair as any sheriff short of Lom Trevors could be – probably. So why was he finally facing off with the pair of outlaws he had been ignoring?

The Kid and Heyes paused for a minute, awkwardly in the middle of the hot, sunny street where people walked curiously by them. Some greeted the popular Mr. Jones by name. Then, hearing the train whistle in the distance, they couldn't wait any longer. They had to go over to the station and to the sheriff waiting for them there. As they arrived in the shadows of the platform, the sheriff met their eyes in turn and motioned for them to follow him around to back of the building. As he turned away, they heard his deep voice saying, "Boys, I think we better talk."

The Sheriff withdrew to the back side of the station building. "What's going on?" said the silent glances between Heyes and the Kid. The Sheriff had chosen to stand in the most private spot he could around that area, or at least it would be until the train arrived. The only building overlooking the back of the station was the windowless side of a warehouse and no one was in the street on that side.

Was this an unsubtle ambush or maybe a declaration of détente? Heyes and the Kid took simultaneous deep breaths and cautiously approached the sheriff's side of the station, exchanging nervous looks, both trying to keep their respective right hands from creeping back toward their respective hips where a pair of loaded six guns were at the ready.

A worried pair of blue eyes and an equally agitated pair of brown eyes confronted the sheriff's steady grey eyes for a long, tense moment. The Sheriff looked calm but very attentive.

"Gentlemen," the sheriff said steadily, "A rumor has reached me, never mind how, and I think I almost believe it. I know your names – your real names – you knew that."

"Yes, sir," said Heyes, in what had become his usual deliberate manner.

A broad smile split the sheriff's face. "So it's true what I hear, Heyes, you really are talking again! That's not the rumor I meant, but I'm mighty glad to know it!" He reached out as if to shake Heyes' hand – the former outlaw belatedly extended it and shook the Sheriff's hand uneasily.

Heyes and the Kid traded looks as much as to say, "What the heck? Why does he care?"

"Thank you, sir," answered Heyes nervously and very slowly. "It's coming along - slowly." He was uncomfortably conscious of being unable to address the man by either his name or his title. New names were impossible for Heyes to say at this stage and "sheriff" wasn't exactly on Dr. Goldstein's list of most useful words to teach a patient.

Sheriff Wilde kept an eye out to make sure that the train wasn't yet arriving and that no townspeople were positioned to see or hear them. He couldn't afford to be seen shaking the hands of outlaws, should they ever need to be captured! But in the mean time, he shook the Kid's hand for good measure. "I think I owe you a thank you, Curry!"

"And we both owe you a bunch of thank yous, Sheriff." the Kid said very quietly. "But about that rumor . . . "

The sheriff answered quickly, hearing the train getting closer, "Yes, boys. What I hear is that you're not only going straight - you're also going for amnesty. That true?"

Heyes looked innocently at the Kid. "You hear that man say something, Kid?"

"Not a word, Heyes," answered the Kid, "not a word."

"Alright, it's a secret. No one will hear it from me – long as you keep being good, peaceful citizens of this town and no money goes missing or any other trouble goes down. Got that straight, boys? Any trouble goes down, you're on my side or you're on the wrong side of the bars. And you better believe that the law in New York City will hear from me, if they need to, Heyes." They could hear a note of some triumph in the sheriff's voice. He had them right where he wanted them and no argument from the silver tongue was going to get them out of it.

"Now that I heard loud and clear, Sheriff," said the Kid with a slow and rather suspicious smile. "You got a deal with me, sir!"

"Me too, sir!" said Heyes, a little slower. They both shook Wilde's hand again.

"Glad to have that straight, boys," said the Sheriff, fighting down a grin. Then he turned on his heel and walked off to leave the pair alone.

Yes, Sheriff Wilde had Heyes and Curry exactly where he wanted them. Sheriff Wild had just effectively recruited the fastest and most respected gunman in the West as a particularly devoted deputy. He must, they supposed, have simply been waiting for Heyes to come back into town so he could make sure that the boys knew that they were both equally hostage to the Kid's good behavior and to his support of the local law. If either of them put a foot wrong, or the Kid failed to help the sheriff when he needed it, Sheriff Wilde and the New York law would have them in their respective jails and any chances for amnesty would be long gone. But then again, this wasn't so bad for the boys. They, too, knew where they stood. And as long as they did as they fully intended to do – stayed on the right side of the law – they would be secure from direct action by this particular sheriff.

But there were still countless possibilities for problems, of course, as their always had been. If Wilde left his post, now that he was a wealthy man, Heyes and Curry would be in a very bad, possibly a fatal, situation. Crimes that Heyes and Curry were perceived to have committed, whether or not they really had committed them, would still be just as disastrous as ever. Sheriff Wilde had said nothing about what would happen if a bounty hunter or another sheriff or anyone else came to turn in the boys. Of course, he would have to follow the law – he would have to jail those who were officially outlaws. And, of course, he hadn't promised to watch the Kid's and Heyes' ever vulnerable backs, still a pair of open invitation to those who wanted to take the first option on turning them in dead or alive. If Heyes had had his old silver tongue, he might have been very tempted to have asked for a few additional conditions. The sheriff had chosen his moment well. Heyes could agree, but he was unable to negotiate.

Just then the train was pulling in. The pair of former outlaws had to move quickly back to the platform, but it wasn't many steps away. The Kid shook Heyes' hand and then gave him a quick bear hug. While their faces were close the Kid whispered to his partner. "Well how 'bout that! Good luck, Heyes."

Heyes whispered back, "We'll see, Kid. Good luck!"

Aloud Heyes said "I'll be back in . . . December, Thaddeus." The long month and the long name were still hard for him. But it seemed to the Kid that perhaps his partner had gotten through his alias just a little more easily than he had when he had arrived, only two weeks before.

As the train pulled out, Heyes looked through a window and waved a familiar blue polka-dotted bandana at his partner. The Kid waved back, then turned away as the train pulled out. He was getting awfully used to walking around this little town alone – or having Cat Christy at his side.


	20. Chapter 20

When Heyes arrived back at the Leutze clinic after his two week vacation, he went back to work with a will. At first he found it hard to make himself resume the exhausting routine of therapy and study, but he soon got back into the demanding rhythm. He couldn't know how much longer his unknown patron, or any patron, would pay for his therapy and his room and board. At any moment the person could decide, "Close enough. He can make it now. No need to have his talking be perfect." Heyes had to take advantage of this support while he had it; not having any idea of how much more work it would take to return his speech and writing, his very life, to anything like normal. Or if that would even be possible.

Heyes worked doggedly with Dr. Goldstein and Dr. Leutze to build his vocabulary and to make his enunciation better and more fluid. His progress in gaining words remained steady, and accelerated as the summer progressed. One bright, sunny, but not too hot July day Heyes walked down the long avenue, ran up the stairs, and came into therapy with Dr. Goldstein. Joshua Smith, "Good morning, Doctor! Delightful day, isn't it?"

The bearded Dr. Goldstein stared through his wire-rimmed glasses at his student for a long, apprasing moment before answering. "Delightful indeed! I would have said Dr. Leutze was jumping the gun with that one - three syllables - but you seem to have it down very well. Extremely well, in fact. Very smooth. Hardly any hesitation at all."

Then it struck Heyes what had happened. "Dr. Leutze didn't teach me delightful."

Dr. Goldstein was taken aback. "Then who did? Beth Warren? She's pushing her luck!"

"No, Dr. G! It just came. I thought about it and it was there!" Heyes could hardly believe it even as he said it. This word had come to his mind automatically, just as words usually came to the minds of most people – people who didn't suffer from Aphasia.

Dr. Goldstein laughed with joy. "Mazltov, Smith! That's your first spontaneously reacquired word, isn't it?"

"Yes, yes it is, Doc!" Joshua Smith's smile lit up the room as brightly as the sunshine. This was a big day! He could hardly wait to spring "delightful," and the story behind it, on Beth and Dr. Leutze and Jim! He hoped this word that had come back on its own would be the first of many.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooo

The next day was greyer, but Joshua Smith was just as happily working on his speech. He held up a large book to Dr. Goldstein and pointed out a word. "Teach me, please" he requested eagerly.

"No, Mr. Smith," replied the good doctor, peering near-sightedly at the long word. "I will not teach you to say . . . circumambulate. I categorically refuse to do so." Heyes' face fell. Dr. Goldstein had a soft heart, so he explained, "For one thing, it would probably take weeks – five syllables! For another thing, you might, just conceivably need it once in your life, if that. And for a last thing, I never heard of the word before in my life and I hope never to hear of it again." The doctor stopped as he saw his patient's dead pan look break up into a wicked smile and a laugh in which Goldstein joined. Smith had been artfully pulling his doctor's leg!

Goldstein chuckled and asked, "What on earth book is this that Beth Warren's trying to get you to read, anyway?" Smith held up the book and Goldstein glanced through it. "_Moby Dick_ by Herman Melville? Never heard of the book or the author. She's really got you working hard on literature, hasn't she? And geography with it – looks like this book would take you around the world on paper right enough." Smith pointed out some other words in the book that he really did want to learn. "I'll teach you carpet bag, certainly – that is a useful phrase. You probably have one yourself. And we can try harpooneer if you insist – God knows, you might go to sea some day. I hope not, but you might, or if you ever have a son, perhaps he will. But not circumambulate! Beth is pushing you hard with all the lessons, isn't she?"

Smith nodded. "I am pushing her, too," he explained. And he was. It was a good thing that the clinic had never given him a job to do around the place, like they had given to Jim and Sam. Heyes had become obsessed with finishing the schooling that had been interrupted when he and the Kid had escaped from the home for waywards where they had spent so many of their childhood years. And the teaching he had received there, and even earlier at the one-room school house when he was a small child, had never been the best. Hannibal Heyes had an opportunity now that he would never have again and he wasn't going to waste it.

The reformed outlaw worked frantically. He voraciously took in literature, history, geography, science, and even philosophy, and especially mathematics, faster than even Beth Warren could quite believe or keep up with. In some areas, her student demanded to know more than she did. So Beth Warren called in friends – including several college professors – to help her to handle the burgeoning and varied educational demands of Joshua Smith. Heyes wrote more and more, improving his composition skills and the critical thinking that supported them. And he worked more and more elaborate mathematical problems, especially concerned with geometry. Heyes worked at his studies day and night, spending countless hours at the Astor library and getting Beth to borrow books for him from Columbia University, where she was an alumna and still took occasional classes. Smith took home piles of books that made Jim Smith whistle when he saw them.

Smith read so late into nearly every night that Jim often had to grouchily hiss at him to turn out the lamp – usually well past midnight."What in G-G-God's name is d-d-driving you, S-S-Smith?" ask Jim. Heyes couldn't answer his friend honestly. But he knew the true answer well. The former outlaw wanted desperately to use his new knowledge and skills not only to make his own future better. He wanted to help the world that, as an outlaw, he had hurt so often and so badly. He and the Kid had had ample opportunity, just before they went straight, to meet up with the particulars of people who had lost their money and their futures because of the depredations of the Devil's Hole Gang. And that was far from the only damage they had caused – Heyes knew it all too well.

For all of his studies, Heyes needed more and more vocabulary, both in speaking and writing. His therapy pressed on, gaining speed. His studies, and the passionate urge that drove them, provided the greatest motivation any man could have.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooo

But Heyes didn't just study and read. He still enjoyed his occasional poker games on the waterfront and won a bit of pocket money that helped to salve his ego, if little else. And he explored around the boroughs of New York.

Even before his June trip back to Colorado, he had come across the Brooklyn Bridge. The awesome span had been completed only a couple of years before. One spring day, Heyes took the long walk over the bridge on the pedestrian walkway. The view of the waterfront was amazing! The Brooklyn Bridge, with its gothic arched masonry and soaring network of suspension cables, was the most modern looking structure Heyes had ever seen. Heyes, with his elementary but growing grasp of engineering and physics, was fascinated by the suspension system. He wondered if, with information about the weights of the members, he could calculate the stresses and how the cables divided up the weight. He even worked on the problem with Beth Warren. He thought of how, a few years before, he had been calculating the stresses that he could put to bear on a safe door in order to blow it opened. Now, he was thinking about how to use the same kind of calculations to keep things safely in place.

Heyes looked down at the rushing water below the span and thought of his recent reading in Walt Whitman's _Leaves of Grass_, another great contemporary book that Beth Warren had brought to his attention. Whitman had written a poem about "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry." Now, Heyes did not know how many or few years after the poem had been written, there was the bridge instead of the ferry. How quickly things could change, with the application of a little math and engineering! When Whitman had written his poem, he had addressed people "a generation, or ever so many generations hence." It had evidently never occurred to the poet that the view of "river and sky" he imagined sharing with the future might, in fact, be so altered by the addition of stones and cables and wooden planks like the one Heyes stood on.

How hard it was to look into the future! What would Heyes' own future be? – This future that he was working so hard to construct! Would it all be blown away, like a safe door, by someone with a gun or handcuffs? Or would it take him in some direction he couldn't envision any more than Whitman had envisioned the Brooklyn Bridge? In a generation's time, or "ever so many generations hence," would anyone ever know or care about a pair of outlaws who had tried to turn to better ways? Would anyone read the fictionalized tales about Heyes and the Kid and believe them? Would he and the Kid be utterly forgotten, or might they have children and grandchildren to remember them? Heyes shook his head as if to clear away these hazy visions of the future. Reading so much was doing strange things to him!

On the other end of the bridge, Heyes walked into the borough of Brooklyn, at the near end of Long Island. Heyes enjoyed exploring the streets. Now that he could speak more, he could talk some with the bums and the hard working laborers he met among the stinking sugar refineries by the water front.

One fine early summer day, Heyes used some of his carefully saved funds to take a trip from Brooklyn on the Long Island Railroad. Before he knew it, he was out in the countryside where there were farms. These green, leafy little farms were utterly different from the big, dry spreads he had known growing up in Kansas. But the two place had one thing in common – some Long Islanders raised sunflowers in their gardens just like his family had in Kansas. Heyes had forgotten all about sunflowers until he saw the beautiful big blossoms on their tall stalks, turning to follow the sun. He smiled with pleasure on seeing these familiar flowers from his past. The open country of Long Island supplied Heyes with many of the things he had been missing about the West. He took to spending many weekend days there, although he never explained this to anyone. He wasn't exactly used to accounting for his actions.

One pretty Sunday, Jim Smith, curious about where his roommate sometimes vanished to on Saturdays and Sundays, surreptitiously followed him. Joshua was carrying something big and bulky in his saddle bags, but Jim couldn't figure out what. Jim trailed Joshua over the Brooklyn Bridge and got onto the Long Island Railroad car next to the one his fellow Smith was on, so he could see where the man got off. Heyes rode the train for a long time, out to the part of the island where the farms were. Jim made sure not to get too close to his roommate as he walked down a leafy, unpaved street for a couple of miles. Finally he arrived at his destination – an old vine-grown stone farm house. Joshua vanished into a little shed near the house and soon emerged wearing his cowboy hat and boots, and his gun belt. So that was what he had been carrying! Now Jim was really intrigued.

Jim hid behind a tree and peeked out to see Joshua knock on the farm house door. Smith handed the lady who answered some money. Then he went into the barn. Shortly, Heyes rode off on a horse tacked up with western gear. Heyes loped off across a green, hilly field. Jim followed much more slowly on foot. After a long walk, when he was already tired from miles of trudging after his long-legged roommate, he found a large field with hoof prints leading across it. He could hear hoof beats in the distance as the distant horseman vanished behind a steep hill. The sound of hoof beats stopped. Before Jim could get to where his roommate had gone, he heard gunfire, silence, and then more gunfire. Now Jim was more than intrigued, he was frightened! Had some gang ambushed Joshua? But Jim bravely kept going, trotting now as fast as his weary body would allow after so long a walk, hoping to get to Joshua in time to help him out of whatever difficulty he was in.

As Jim came over the hill, he saw Joshua standing some distance away, with his back to Jim and his six-gun in his hand. He fired off a rapid series of shots aimed at something that Jim couldn't see because of a big stand of trees that blocked his view. Joshua dashed toward the trees and he, too, vanished from Jim's view. Finally the weary Jim got to the other side of the trees and saw Joshua by an old timber fence, leaning on the fence. Had he been shot? Hearing Jim's heavy footsteps in the bracken, Joshua turned swiftly, his gun drawn in his hand. Jim put his hands up – he didn't want to get shot by mistake!

Joshua broke out laughing. He spoke, with the pauses before his words getting less noticeable now, "Oh, there you are, Jim! You sure walk slow. Glad you – glad you got here – at last. Can you help me with the cans, please?"

Jim laughed with Joshua. His roommate was just practicing with his pistol! What he had been bending over was a row of tin cans that he had just expertly shot off of a line of fence posts from a considerable distance. Not one can was still standing. Jim walked over to Joshua, who handed him a canteen full of water. "You must be thirsty, partner! That's a long walk."

Jim took a deep drink from the chilly canteen and said, "Y-y-you knew I was f-f-following you?"

Joshua laughed again, "Course I did – you ain't e - the best at t . . . at following a man. I tried not to go too fast and leave you behind!"

"You d-d-don't mind?" Jim didn't want to invade his friend's privacy.

Heyes grinned. "Nah. Should have told you before, but you know, at first I couldn't. I'm glad to have you along, if you help with the cans." Jim helped Joshua to set up the battered cans on the fence posts again.

After that afternoon the two Smiths often went out to Long Island together. Smith enjoyed keeping his western skills in practice. Joshua found Jim eager to learn Western style riding and shooting. For Heyes, it was kind of nice to have someone to teach, when he spent so much time having other people teach him. In fact, Heyes was a natural teacher – it was how he had always communicated his complex plans to the Devil's Hole Gang. Some of those guys, who weren't all the sharpest knives in the drawer, had needed considerable teaching. Heyes only wished he had the Kid along to really teach Jim proper shooting. Heyes knew that while he wasn't bad with a gun, his partner was the very best.


	21. Chapter 21

One day as Heyes came up the stairs to the clinic a few minutes earlier than usual, he overheard Polly the receptionist and the chatty middle-aged nurse Tabby Booth teasing Elizabeth Warren about something. Heyes didn't want to embarrass Beth Warren by walking in on this, so he took his time coming down the hall, pausing behind a filing cabinet where the women couldn't see him while he intentionally dropped his pen and bent down to pick it up. Heyes kept trying to stay out of awkward situations around the clinic, but they kept turning up. Just the day before, he had stumbled across the buxom Beth Warren flirting outrageously with the charming, handsome young therapist Dr. Bartholomew. Plenty was said about that man behind his back! The very blonde, blue-eyed Dr. B (as he was called by even those who had no trouble with speech) was known to frequent dangerous parts of the city. He went around with a variety of leggy dancing girls and improper actresses – all simultaneously. Apparently other people had noticed the same incident that had so embarrassed Heyes and they were much less kind to his normally reserved tutor about it.

He overheard Polly saying, "Oh Beth, how can you say that? Don't be silly! Of course he's handsome, no one could deny that, but would you feel safe alone with him? You know what they say about those dangerous places he goes and the low women he sees. . ."

Tabby said archly, "Oh Beth, why even think about that beautiful young man. You haven't got a prayer with that sort – they're all for flashy clothes and long legs. A smart woman like you is far beyond him."

"Oh, I don't know . . ." Said Miss Warren and Heyes heard her open the door to her office and walk in, while the other women went giggling down the hall in the other direction.

Only then did Heyes dare to emerge from behind the cabinet to go to Miss Warren's office for his lesson. She was still a little flushed from this suggestive conversation when her student walked in the door. As Heyes got started on his math lesson for the day, in the back of his mind he realized that he almost wished that the women had been talking about him. He knew that he was not, and had no wish to be, a beautiful young man. He wasn't really that young anymore and beautiful was not in the realm of possibility. That was the way women had always seen the golden-haired Kid, not his dark partner. Heyes had never thought of Beth Warren as romantic material, but he enjoyed the sparkle in her eyes when she made a joke. Just for the sake of his tender and needy male ego, it would have been nice for her to have found him attractive. But obviously, this was not the case. She never flirted with Joshua Smith, just joked around with him like a girl might with her little brother. To her, Joshua Smith was merely one more student in a long procession who had worked hard to impress the formidable Miss Warren. [This is Heyes' own image of himself, not mine. So don't send me hate mail, gentle readers!]

And, as the months went by, Joshua Smith did impress his tutor, and his doctors. As he frantically labored away at his studies as well as his therapy, he even started to impress himself sometimes, greatly to his surprise. His classes with Miss Warren and the helpers she called in allowed just the kind of learning that had always appealed to Heyes and that had seemed utterly impossible out west. When he had first gone to New York, he had not thought about anything except getting well.

But now Heyes found himself, as when he had stood on the Brooklyn Bridge, crossing over from a place he knew in his life to a new place where he felt utterly unsure. Somehow, just as Lom Trevors had speculated to the Kid, having to recover from his shattering loss was allowing Heyes to take a new look at himself – at what he could do and what he wanted to do. He discovered what he thought he wanted the most. Nothing that Heyes wanted that much would be easy – it never had been. With his lingering problems speaking, it would be even harder. But he still wasn't sure if it was right or wrong even to try. He and the people he cared about stood to lose so much if he failed – or perhaps even more if he succeeded.


	22. Chapter 22

The Kid again stood in the dusty Louisville train station, waiting for his partner to return from New York. How many times would he greet Heyes at this little station, and then send him off again to New York? When, the Kid couldn't help but wonder, might his partner be home for good?

The Kid for the moment was all alone in the icy December air of a late afternoon that seemed hardly warmed by the dazzling sun. No one else wanted to brave the cold! Curry hunched in his heavy shearling coat and stomped his booted feet to keep warm. As when he had waited here in June, the Kid felt a bit nervous to find out how Heyes would be. It was so hard to tell from letters. Heyes' letters were longer and had a greater variety of words in them than they had before. But the change was gradual and how it lined up with Heyes' speech was impossible to say from such a distance. Heyes' letters said almost nothing about his own treatment and his studies – he just talked about all that was going on around him in the clinic and in the big city where it was. It had been more than fifteen months already since Heyes had been shot in the head. It had been six months since the Kid and Cat had seen him. What would have changed in that time?

The train at last pulled into the station. Only the one familiar figure got off, the ragged black hat on his head and a new brown coat keeping him warm. The station master looked out just briefly before withdrawing to stay by the stove in his office. So Heyes and the Kid could talk with freedom in the icy Colorado winter air - if Heyes could talk with any freedom at all anywhere.

As Heyes came closer, the Kid looked carefully at his partner, trying to judge what changes there might have been since the previous June. From a distance, looking at a man in a heavy coat, it was hard to tell much.

But then as Heyes turned to look at the Kid and came closer, Curry could hardly believe his eyes. Heyes appeared to be thriving. Heyes grinned and his eyes sparkled in a way the Kid hadn't seen for a long time – not just since he had been shot, but it seemed since years before that. The dull shadow that had been in his eyes since the shooting seemed nearly gone.

Heyes opened his mouth and gave the Kid one of the great shocks of his life, as words tumbled from his partner's lips, "Gosh, it's great to see you, Jed - partner! I've got so . . . so much to tell you! There's - something happening every minute in New York – it'll be a real vacation to get away from all the commotion, to tell you the truth. To just - visit with you and Cat seems like nothing short of heaven to me. I can't wait to get out on Clay and do some real riding. I've done some riding on Long Island, to keep in practice, but it's nothing like riding out west."

The Kid raised a hand. "Whoa there, partner! Let's get into Christy's before we get too far into all the news. It's too damn cold out here," Kid said, leading his partner down the street at a brisk walk. That is, he said it when he could get a word in edgewise. Curry could hardly stop smiling and he was only pretending that it was the bright sun and winter cold making his eyes water. There was so much less hesitation in Heyes' speech now than there had been, and the variety of words he could use was so much great – he seemed nearly back to normal. Heyes had paused over only about three or four words so far, and all the words were coming so much faster and more smoothly than they had less than six months before. A stranger might not even have noticed the brief breaks.

And the Kid had particularly noticed Heyes' pointed introduction of the word partner – he had, indeed, found that word and lots of others. There could be no mistaking it. Heyes had made dramatic progress in recovering his speech. And his recovery of the confidence that went with it had proceeded apace. The awful sense of shame and shyness that had plagued Heyes so was receding. The Kid was delighted - and surprised. What had happened? Could this possibly be just the accumulation of day to day work, or was it something more? As when Heyes had first gone from making no progress at the clinic to learning words every day, something seemed to have broken through. But what was it?

As he weathered the gale of words coming his way, the Kid wasn't entirely sure that Heyes' recovery was an unmixed blessing. He'd almost forgotten what it was like when Heyes was excited and full of things to say. It was great to hear his partner all enthusiastic and not frustrated by being unable to speak, but it was also a real effort to keep up with his galloping brain and mouth as his talk jumped between the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, New York's professional baseball team, and the latest advances in electric lighting. There were hitches along the way, but amazingly little stood between Heyes and the expression of his ambitious thoughts.

When they got to Christy's place, Heyes had to remember to be just Joshua again, as he shook hands with Joe the bar tender and Ted the piano player. "It sure is good to see you again, boys! Hey, Joe, you've got to tell me all the s . . . bar gossip. Ted, what was the latest big fight? Anybody drawn on Thaddeus lately? What's the biggest game you've had and who won?" Joe and Ted couldn't answer just at first – they were both standing with their mouths open in the face of this rapid torrent of speech from a man who had spoken only with a great effort when they had last met.

"Oh my goodness, Joshua, you're all better, ain't you?!" exclaimed Joe when he could say anything at all.

Heyes nodded happily, "Pretty close, boys, pretty close," was all he said. The Kid knew what he meant. For most laconic western men, Heyes' speech would have been all they needed. But for a man who had formerly been one of the slickest talkers in the West, he hadn't gotten back to what he perceived as normal.

Joe said, "Let me get you something, Joshua – what about a hot brandy?" But Heyes wouldn't accept anything to drink until he had had a chance to say hello to Cat, who was cooking dinner.

Heyes pushed the door to the kitchen open, Cat was bending over the stove, wearing a long apron. It was a very domestic looking scene – like something from Heyes' distant old memories of growing up in Kansas, back before the Border Wars. "Oh Cat," Heyes exclaimed, "This really is home! I'm so . . . so grateful to you! Whatever you're cooking, it sure does smell good. I can't tell you how good it is to be back here with you and Jed!" These words poured out of Heyes at a pace utterly at odds with anything Cat had heard from him before, even if slower than before he was shot. And his eyes shown with a light like nothing she had ever seen.

Cat laughed and said, "Heyes, sure sounds to me like you can tell me real well. At last! Oh Heyes, I'm so happy for you!"Cat flung her arms around him and kissed him soundly. Heyes winked broadly at his partner and gave Cat a good, hearty kiss back right on the lips.

The Kid laughed and said, "Miss Christy, allow me to introduce my partner, Mister Hannibal Heyes. I don't believe you've ever met before!" Heyes bowed and doffed his hat theatrically. They all laughed because it was true – the man Cat had known, even as recently as June, when she had thought she was meeting the real man, was immeasurably different from the one who stood before her now. The new Heyes' eyes were lively, a wide, deep-dimpled smile was on his face, and something much closer to his old easy flow of talk was at his command. The Silver Tongue was not quite back, but seemed within spitting distance. No present that Heyes could possibly have brought them from New York could match that.

To Cat, who had never known Heyes before he was shot, he seemed to be talking almost completely normally. It took the Kid, and of course far more so, Heyes himself, to realize how far he still had to go. Only Heyes himself heard his continuing internal struggles between what he could say and what he wanted to say. But Heyes could cope very well, so long as he didn't try to improvise the kind of slick line of talk he had managed at his best (or worst) before the shooting.

Over dinner the Kid, Cat, and Heyes told each other story after story. The Kid griped about the grey hairs he was getting from watching out for every crime Sheriff Wilde might want him to help deal with. But he had to admit that by Western standards the town really was a pretty quiet one outside of Christy's Place itself and a few other saloons. And Cat had stories of her own about the colorful patrons of the place. But the Kid and Cat teamed up couldn't come near to matching Heyes' stories for number and enthusiasm.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooo

But that night, sitting up in bed under a patchwork quilt whose bright patterns glowed warmly in the lamplight, the Kid didn't seem nearly as happy as Cat had expected. Surely, she thought, he was glad to have his partner well and not in any need of returning to New York for more therapy? On the contrary, the Kid seemed downright peeved. Curry said to Cat, "Damn that Heyes! He's hidin' something from us. I wish to heaven I knew what it was."

"What in creation are you talking about, Kid?" asked his love, snuggling close at his side. "He's said about everything a man could possibly say ever since he came in the door. I think he's told us every single solitary thing that's happened in New York City in the last six months."

"But how many of those things happened to him? Not many, you got to grant me that. Every time we tried to ask about his clinic work and his studies, or his plans past Christmas, he changed the subject." said the Kid, with a kiss to an intimate part of Cat. Cat virtually purred, but she was still thinking about Heyes.

Cat paused and stroked the Kid's chest thoughtfully, "Well, now that I think of it, that's true, right enough. He's talked about Jim, and Dr. Leutze, and the clinic's baseball team, and Beth Warren, and the Long Island farms, and the rent war, the Brooklyn Bridge, the gang wars, that new big statue of Liberty thing they're trying to build - his own name didn't turn up much. But couldn't he just be trying to avoid boring us with stories about therapy and school?"

The Kid shook his head, "No ma'am! I don't buy it! Heyes just purely loves to talk about himself - especially when he's doin' well. When he's proud of himself, he don't let you forget it for a minute. When he don't go on about himself, it means he's doing something that he don't want me – us – to know about. And when he keeps on changin' the subject like that, then I am downright sure he's hidin' something. His letters have been kinda' quiet on his own sweet self, too, seems to me."

"And you're sure that what he's hiding is bad?" Cat said with no hint of a question in her voice. She knew her man. When he had these pessimistic urges there was no use arguing with him.

"Why in God's green earth would he hide something good?" retorted the Kid. Cat didn't have anything to say to that, so they turned out the light.


	23. Chapter 23

It stayed cold and a little fresh snow sifted down outside the heavily frosted windows of Christy's place as night came on Christmas Eve. The Kid and Heyes had split plenty of wood and stacked it high in a utility room to be there in case of a blizzard. The Kid had given the horses extra feed and warmed their water. There was a rope connecting the hotel with the stable so in case of the blinding snow and high winds of a blizzard, the Kid could find his way back and forth safely to feed the horses. The humans at Christy's were all safe and snug inside, with extra quilts on the beds. The wonderful odors of Cat's fresh-baked bread and pies and cookies filled the place. Most of the customers stayed away from the bar, except for a few very lonely drifters, and most of the hotel rooms were empty. Christy's Place was fully stocked with food and other supplies in case more folks turned up fleeing bad weather. But a blizzard didn't come; Christmas did.

The clouds had blown away over night so Christmas dawned bright and cold. With no children in the hotel, there was no excitement about stockings and there were no loud cries before dawn. But there was a special feeling around the place nonetheless. Cat had put up some holly and pine braches and tied red ribbons to the chandeliers in the saloon and the hotel lobby. The Kid woke up early and kissed Cat, "Merry Christmas!" he whispered.

"Merry Christmas to you, Jed." Cat said in a soft voice, but not a whisper. "Why are you whispering, honey?"

"I don't know – it just seems like a morning to whisper, at least until we know everyone's up. Let'em sleep in for once, as a Christmas present, you know?" Honestly, the Kid didn't feel like confronting anyone that morning – least of all his evasive partner.

Cat got up and fixed hot cross buns and pancakes and spicy sausage and hot coffee and fried eggs. She fed the few guests and the very few employees who lived at Christy's and weren't away with friends or family on Christmas day, as well as the Kid and Heyes and herself. All exchanged happy holiday greetings, but the bar assistant Bruce and waitress Honoria soon went off to look after the few guests and to give their bosses and their guest some privacy.

Heyes and Cat and the Kid lingered chattily over breakfast until they were alone in their back kitchen and could talk freely. "Come on, Heyes!" said Cat, "Eat up! You're looking awful thin. You haven't been sick, have you?"

"No, ma'am!" chuckled Heyes. "I just been b . . . working hard – at the clinic – to finish up fast. And the food i . . . ain't so good there as your home cooking!" Cat thought his speech was much worse today than it had been when he arrived. Something was surely bothering him.

"Well, you're on holiday now! So take it easy and eat hearty or I'll be offended! We'll work you hard enough here after Christmas – you'll need your strength, Mr. new floor-manager!" Heyes blushed, although Cat wasn't sure why. Maybe he just wasn't used to having a woman fuss over his health? But he did clean his plate a couple of times.

Cat was surprised to see how excited Heyes and the Kid seemed to be about Christmas. They were both grinning like boys as they gathered in the warmth around the stove to bring out the presents they had been hiding from each other. It was bitterly cold out, but the stove glowed red with warmth and the faces around it glowed, too. Heyes went first, handing a beautiful little leather bound volume of Robert Browning poetry to Cat. "Oh, Heyes, thank you!" said Cat. "You know how hard it is to get books way out here! I'll enjoy this so much!" She kissed Heyes on the cheek to thank him and he blushed like a school boy – which made twice that morning. Cat was starting to wonder why she had such power to embarrass Heyes, especially when she handed him the prettily wrapped package she had for him, tied with red ribbon. When Heyes unwrapped the vest she had embroidered for him, he could barely choke out his, "Thanks, Cat! I'll . . . think . . . of you whenever I . . . wear it!" And he blushed even redder and ducked his head shyly.

The Kid presented his partner with a handsome new skinning knife with a bone handle. Heyes could hardly look at his cousin to thank him. In exchange, Heyes gave the Kid a handsome brass folding telescope, saying with a wink, "Won it off a . . . s . . . ship captain at poker!" The Kid hardly knew what to say to such an exotic, beautiful, and useful present. He was anxious to take it out and look at the mountains with it.

Cat said, happily, "It's so wonderful to have you here for Christmas, Heyes, to have you both together. How long has it been since you were both together in a nice homey place for Christmas?" And then she felt terrible for asking and understood both why the boys were so excited, and why other emotions were so close to the surface. They both looked ready to break into tears, and tongue-about answering her.

"You don't have to answer that, guys," choked out Cat, dissolving in tears and holding tight to the Kid, "I'm so sorry I asked. I know the answer," and she was right.

It had been exactly twenty-three years since Heyes and the Kid – since young Hannibal and Jedediah - had been together in anything like a home setting for Christmas. Their last Christmas in a real home had been the one before their parents and brothers and sisters had been slaughtered in the Kansas Border Wars. It was impossible for the Kid and Heyes to be together for such a beautiful and happy Christmas in this hotel that was really a home for them without thinking of all the awful years when Christmas hadn't really been Christmas – the hellish Christmases at the home for waywards, the whiskey-soaked all-man Christmases at Devil's Hole, one year holed up in a cave on the run from a posse, one year they had been in jail, and then there was the year they had been snowed in with gold miners and the Kid had been so sick, and the previous year when the Kid had been so terribly torn between happiness over being with Cat and misery over known how far from home Heyes was and wondered if his partner would ever be well.

But most of all, neither of the boys could ever think of Christmas without remembering the family traditions that had been wiped out forever by blood and death. They could not experience a home Christmas without vividly seeing again in memory the faces and hearing the voices of the parents and siblings they would never meet again on earth. They tried to hide from those memories all year long, but at Christmas the ghosts gathered around them too closely to be ignored.

There was an awkward, damp pause, as the boys wiped their eyes and tried to pretend that they weren't in tears. Then Heyes had an idea that he hoped would help them all. He climbed the stairs and came back down with his guitar in his hand, although it took him longer to come back than one might have thought. His damp hair and shirt showed that he had thrown cold water onto his face at least a couple of times. His eyes were still noticeably red.

Heyes played as many Christmas songs as he could remember, from happy fun ones like "Jingle Bells," and "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," to more touching ones like "Oh Little Town of Bethlehem," and "Away in a Manger." The three sang together with growing happiness as music helped them to remember the good things about Christmas – especially this Christmas when they were all together with a warm stove and plenty to eat and no posse on their tails. Heyes finished the caroling with a song that he had heard in New York that was new to the others – the German carol "Stille Nacht." It had been popular in the east for years but was new to these westerners in English translation as "Silent Night." Heyes sang it alone alternating verses between German and English. The German was easy for him because it was so close to the Yiddish that he was still learning from his neighbors on Hester Street. Heyes sang the lovely carol so sweetly and with such open emotion that that his friends were reduced to tears.

As Cat and the Kid wiped their eyes, Heyes told them a story that he had heard from Dr. Leutze the previous year when he and the rest of the staff had sung to their patients. Dr. Leutze had been caroling with friends in his home in the Brooklyn suburbs when they came to the house of an elderly German couple well known for keeping a lovely home and a beautiful garden together for many, many happy years. In the dark outside the lamp-lit windows of the house, the carolers sang "Stille Nacht" for the family in their best German, not noticing how poorly cared for the garden was that year. The grey-haired lady of the house came to the door alone. She apologized for the poor trim of the garden and for having none of the customary food or drink to share with the carolers. She had only just returned from the hospital where her dear husband had died after a long illness. Rather than care for the garden, she had cared for her husband. The following year when the carolers returned to the same house, the garden was a shambles and the house was dark. The old lady had followed her husband.

Heyes looked at Cat and the Kid, holding his guitar, his eyes brimming with tears, "I hope . . . I hope . . . you both have even more happy years . . . together . . . than that old German couple."

The Kid couldn't reply to this at all except by blowing his nose repeatedly, but Cat said, "Thank you, Heyes! You know – you are always welcome to share our home as long as you want."

Heyes could barely whisper, "Thank you . . . so much . . . Cat!" Then he almost ran up the stairs to put his guitar away before Cat went to the kitchen to work on their Christmas dinner. She was cooking a goose that the Kid had shot and it was starting to smell wonderful. Heyes was gone from the room for far longer than it would take anyone to put away a guitar.

Before she went to the kitchen, though, and while Heyes was gone, Cat had something important to say to the Kid. "Kid," said Cat, wiping her eyes again and looking very concerned, "I understand that Christmas is very, very hard for you both, after what happened to your families. But am I crazy to think that something else is bothering your poor partner? When he can talk about something besides himself, he's fine. But every time we give him something or say anything half way nice to him, or talk about plan for the future, it bothers him like mad. It's – I don't know – it's almost as if he had done something awful that he was ashamed of."

"I know what you mean, Cat," said the Kid shaking his head. "I hope you're wrong, but if you are I can't explain it. Christmas gets to me, too, after all these years. But something else is eating Heyes alive, too. I guess he wants to wait until after Christmas to tell us. I don't think it would do any good to ask him. He's so stubborn - always has been. We'll just have to wait it out. We'll just have to pretend we don't know anything's wrong, and have a happy Christmas dinner together. Then I thought we might go out sledding with the Johnson boys next door, whose pa died last summer. They could use a man or two to watch out for them. But I don't look forward to hearing what Heyes has to tell us tomorrow - not one little bit."

The pair looked at each other with trepidation. What could make Heyes feel that ashamed of himself? What had he done or what was he about to do? Each had his or her own thoughts. They didn't share them, each thinking the other would find them ridiculous.

Cat worried about whether the temptations of New York had gotten to Heyes – could he have gone back to crime? She had never known him when he was a professional criminal, so she didn't know what a return to that life would look like. That he would look guilty made all too much sense to her.

But the Kid worried about something that, to him, was much worse. He thought of how Heyes had blushed when Cat had talked to him and given him things and kissed him. And how Heyes had kissed Cat on the mouth when came from the train. Being in love with her himself, the Kid had a hard time imagining why any man wouldn't love this beautiful, slender, blonde woman. Was it possible that Heyes, too, was in love with Cat? What could make him look any guiltier than that? The boys had fallen for the same girl before, but never seriously. The old coin tossing trick sure wouldn't work with Cat!

[Dear readers, other than the setting in time and space, the story of the old German couple is perfectly true. I was one of the carolers.]


	24. Chapter 24

Heyes and the Kid and Cat gathered around the pot-bellied stove in the back room of Christy's place on the evening of the day after Christmas, trying to stay warm in the frigid Colorado winter. Cat and the Kid were discussing what supplies they wanted to buy for the saloon and hotel – cards, whiskey, chips, table clothes, a bunch of flour, sugar, and salt etc. Spring would be coming and they expected the usual rush of business as the roads thawed. Heyes didn't take part in the talk, although his two friends looked toward him again and again, expecting some contribution from him. The Kid fretted, worrying over something he could never even hint to the two people he was closest to in the world. Cat cherished her own fears. Why was Heyes brooding silently, and in general acting so guilty?

Heyes had dropped out of the conversation ever since dinner. With his hands in his pockets and his feet on a crate, he sat moodily gazing at the glowing stove, saying nothing. He had a terrible hang-dog look as he realized that both Cat and the Kid were staring at him.

The Kid prodded, "Alright, Heyes. Out with it. What's eatin' you? Whatever it is has been gnawing away at you ever since you got here. Don't play the innocent with me!

We're expectin' you to start pullin' your weight on management, you know. And we ain't hearin' much out of you on the subject. You are plannin' to floor-manage and do books for us, like we talked about? Now that you're all well - you sure are well enough not to have to go back to New York ever again, ain't you?"

Heyes looked determinedly at the stove and said nothing. This was positively weird, after his previous chattering. He was actively hiding something for sure.

"Heyes," prompted Cat, "your partner is speaking to you. You gonna answer him? Or do you want me to?"

Heyes looked up and took a deep breath. "Cat, you can't answer for me – no one needs to anymore."

"Then why the silent treatment, partner?" prodded the Kid.

Heyes looked down again and took another deep breath. "Because – because I don't – I mean I'm not – I mean I can't . . . I . . ."

"You did better than that when you couldn't talk," chuckled the Kid. Now it was going to come out, what Heyes had been hiding. From what they saw in Heyes' eyes, it didn't seem like he was hiding anything dangerous or tragic like he had faced so much of recently. It didn't seem like that at all. He seemed kind of quietly excited with his eyes strangely bright. Now that they saw this, Cat and Curry were really curious, if no longer quite so desperately worried.

Heyes took a third deep breath and tried again. His words came out in a rush, then stalled hard, and continued slowly and softly, "I really am grateful to you for your offer of a job with you, Cat, Kid, and I feel awful about not doing what we agreed on, but if you don't mind too awfully much . . . I . . . have other plans."

"What plans are you talkin' about, Heyes?" the Kid was baffled. Cat looked at Heyes keenly, then at the Kid. Their exchanged glances said, "Here it comes!"

"Well, I. . . um . . . things have . . . um . . . changed. You see, while I was studying with Miss Warren last fall, she was taking a college geometry class with the same professor who checked out my dodecahedron formula – Professor Homer. [The Kid now knew that Heyes was really pretty darned close to well – no one with serious trouble speaking could possibly have said dodecahedron without stumbling over it and Heyes had gotten through it without a hitch!] Beth - Miss Warren - asked if I wanted to sit in on the class – just to come to classes and not be graded. I couldn't really expect to understand it – without any real high school classes and not having taken the prerequisites . . ."

"The pre-what?" asked Kid.

"Prerequisites," said Heyes, again not tripping at all over a long word from so far outside the Kid's world. "The classes – the college classes - you need to take before this class, to be ready for it. There weren't many for this class, just a couple. But they were classes, of course, that I hadn't taken. But I'd learned a lot from Beth Warren. And I got interested – and I did the reading and assignments. It was great - it was really, well, fun."

"Fun?" the Kid mouthed in exaggerated disbelief to Cat, but she waved for him to stay quiet. Heyes was coming to something important that was hard for him to say. The more he was interrupted, or teased, the longer and harder it would be for him to get there.

"I, um, I took the final exam – just to see if I'd understood what I was reading and hearing. And I, um, I . . ." Heyes was fighting not with his vocabulary but with how to use it to express something hard.

"You don't have to be ashamed of doing badly Heyes - you weren't prepared. Maybe you might want to try again to get it right. Is that it?" guessed Cat.

"Um, no," Heyes corrected her, "I . . ."

"You didn't fail it, did you?" asked Cat.

The Kid quickly defended his partner. "Course not - Heyes never fails anything. He messes things up, but he don't fail."

"You're right Kid, I didn't fail," Heyes went on. "I – well – I did alright. Actually more than alright. I (and now his voice grew so deep and soft that they hard to strain to hear it over the crackling fire in the stove) I got an A – not just an A – I led the class."

"Oh my God!" said Cat and the Kid almost in unison and the Kid went on alone. "Robertson was right!"

"Robertson?" asked Cat.

"An old teacher who rode with one of Heyes' old gangs for a while, back before Devil's Hole. He taught Heyes some math. He's the first guy who told Heyes he was a genius. The second was Heyes, of course. But it seems Robertson was right, damn him!" The Kid was happy for his partner. But then he started to get an inkling of what was really coming next. He felt an awful sinking sensation.

"I don't know about that," said Heyes, with unaccustomed modesty, "But it, well it kinda' got the professor's attention, you might say. He worked with me some and decided that I had, 'promise' was how he put it." Heyes came to the point now, talking fast, as if he was afraid of losing his nerve. "I'm going back to New York next week to bone up on my studies and start writing letters – letters asking for money. I've been accepted to matriculate at Columbia starting in the spring semester."

"To mat what?" the Kid knew what it must mean, although he had never heard the word before. Again, Heyes had gotten through this long word, so unfamiliar to the Kid and Cat, without the slightest problem.

Heyes' voice fell into his deepest range, creaking a little, so soft it was hard to hear him, as if he didn't quite believe it himself, "To matriculate - to start earning a degree – a bachelor's degree - in mathematics. At Columbia."

"In South America?" exclaimed Cat in disbelief.

Heyes laughed and his voice recovered, "Columbia University, Cat, in New York City! That's where Professor Homer teaches." There was a long, awkward silence while the Kid and Cat thought about this and tried to figure out what to say to Heyes. They were both relieved – their worst fear had been totally wrong. There was reason for Heyes not to be ashamed, but to be proud!

But now the Kid and Cat knew what Heyes had really been hiding, they also knew he had wanted to hide from them. And they knew why Heyes had blushed so when Cat had invited him to share their home and given him a present fit only for a cowboy. He wasn't going to stay in Colorado with them at all. He was going back to New York and he would be there for years! This was what Heyes had waited until after Christmas to say. This was what made him feel ashamed of accepting any gifts or help or praise after all that the Kid and Cat had done for him in expectations that he would come home now to stay. This was why Heyes had been feeling so guilty – he felt that he was disappointing and hurting his best friends. And he was hurting them – there could be no doubting it. They were crushed that he would not be with them, except for holidays, even as they were happy for him.

And it was no wonder he had given them such very New York City presents – that was where his mind was concentrated. And they knew why his speech had improved so rapidly – this was his motivation. The chance to finally attend college was what he wanted so fiercely that he had worked like a mad man to get it

Heyes was terribly anxious that his friends should understand how he felt, "I'm so very sorry to do this to you, after you've done so much for me. I know you were counting on me to stay. I'm awful sorry to change up on you! But I have to take this chance – you can understand that, can't you? It's my one chance! It won't come again!"

"Oh, Heyes," exclaimed Cat, "Of course we can see that! We're real proud of you, aren't we Kid?"

The Kid was still more than a bit bowled over. "Heyes, you know we wouldn't hold you down here, anymore than we'd lock you up. But are you sure it's going to work out? I mean, I don't want to make you feel bad, but you ain't really talkin' quite perfect yet. And, damn it, how in hell are you goin' to pay for it? I don't know much it costs, but I do know college ain't free!"

Heyes had answers for all of that, "You're right, Kid. I guess I'll always have to struggle kinda with the talking. But they think my speech is good enough, and my writing. Professor Homer got the University to accept me - on a trial basis. And they're giving me a full scholarship. That pays for all the classes, Kid. But I'll be going to school full time or more and taking as many classes as I can so I can finish my BA in less than the usual four years. I'm not getting any younger and I want to get back out here - - where - where I belong." The Kid and Cat exchanged a glance – that, at least, was good news in the long run. "I won't have time to have a job on the side like a lot of students do. And now that my aphasia is so much better, the patron who paid for my treatment before is done paying. I never did find out who it was – wish I could thank him!

But I'll need someone new to help keep me in food and rent. Not you! Good God, I couldn't ask that. But I was thinking I might ask some of our friends who have plenty of money - Soapy and maybe Big Jim Santana and that rich crazy wife of his. You know we said what a good friend we had there, Kid?" The Kid nodded. He had said that, but he had not had any idea, at the time, of how exactly their friend might come in handy.

"Heyes," Cat wanted to know, "What on earth are you going to do with a college degree in mathematics?"

"Almost anything I like," Heyes answered happily, talking easily now that the big news was out, "Book-keeping, engineering, store-keeping, mining, surveying, architecture, maybe even teach some school if my . . . talking gets enough better. Think I'd better stay away from banking!" He gave Cat a broad wink. "While I'm studying, I'll find out how I can best use it. They have people to help you with that, you know."

"Don't try building! You wouldn't survive it!" joked the Kid, thinking of Heyes' perennial troubles with hammers.

Heyes gave his partner a mock frown, "Very funny, Kid! Joke all you like, but I've got to make an honest living somehow. I can't just fatten off you two – you don't need me to manage this place. You have it running along just fine without me. And if we ever do get that amnesty, Kid, I'll be all ready. Maybe getting a degree will even help to impress the governor and get him to . . . to make a move."

"Maybe you're right, Heyes. Nothing else has lit a fire under him so far – maybe a little education would do it. But – is that really what you want?" The Kid sounded almost hurt.

Heyes understood – all too well. "Yeah, Kid. It really is. It always has been, but it was so impossible! I couldn't do more than dream about it until now. It's going to be hard, hard work. It already is hard work. I know so much less than most students do. And I can't . . . talk the way they do, you're right. But I'll make it. I'm . . . sure of that. I'm sorry to have to wait so long to get back out here, but I just have to do this." Heyes spoke softly, but there was a gleam in his eyes – a new fire leaping into life. So Curry knew that his partner meant what he said. Heyes would be going back to New York. He wouldn't be an outlaw, or a saddle bum, as people had so often called Smith and Jones, any more. If fate, and the mercy of the law, allowed, Heyes would be a college man. Guys out West sometimes called college men sissies. But now the Kid knew that wasn't true. If there was anyone on earth who wasn't a sissy, it was Heyes.

Heyes grinned and said to Kid, "You know, with a college education, they say the world is your oyster."

"Why," the Kid retorted, "would anyone want an oyster that big?"

The men laughed. Cat, however, was too worried to laugh, "But Heyes, you're still wanted. What if the University finds out who you are? Or what about the people that might hire you when you finish school? What if they find out?"

"They'd better not find out, that's all. Or we'd better get that . . . damned amnesty," Heyes said with a hard hitch in his speech but plenty of determination.


	25. Chapter 25

As New Year's approached, one fine but very cold afternoon Heyes and the Kid walked through the fresh, frigid mountain air to the hotel's stable to visit their horses. The boys wished they could go riding, but it was way too cold and snowy for that to make sense. So they were just going to groom their horses and check them over, as good horsemen will. "Heyes, what's a college class like? I just can't picture you sitting in rows on benches like we did in the school house reciting when they get to you. It ain't like that, is it?"

Heyes laughed. "No Kid, not much! It's all separate desks and every class gets it own nice, big room. We don't recite in order like school kids! But we did have to put up our hands and to give answers in class, which felt pretty weird, after all these years. I was just sitting in, so I didn't have to give answers. But I did sometimes."

The conversation paused as they as they went into the stable's tack room, out of the cold, to pick up a couple of buckets of brushes and hoof picks. The Kid was pleased to find his partner in the mood to answer questions so he could get some idea of what Heyes had been going through, and what was about to come. "Was anybody your age?" asked the Kid.

Heyes shook his head. "Not In the class I sat in with. There was one guy in the class I took who was older than I am – maybe forty. The rest of them were kids about eighteen or twenty. They called me old man or cowboy or hick, when they bothered to call me anything at all; I called them boy!" The Kid, hearing a defensive note in his partner's voice, looked concerned, but Heyes gave him a dangerous smile that the Kid knew well and said, "Don't worry, Kid, I can handle those children.

But in class, Kid, we talked like adults. Not just about what's right and what's the formula for whatever it is, but why it's right – why it works. That's the really fun part. That's where you really learn." His eyes glowed with enthusiasm and the Kid couldn't help but notice his partner's expanded vocabulary and how he stumbled less in his speech when he was talking about school. The Kid had never liked school much – Heyes loved it when it was well taught. But then, Heyes was good at it.

The pair carried their brushes to where their favorite horses were stabled side by side. Each man went into his own horse's stall. Clay rubbed his head against Heyes so hard he almost knocked his master off his feet. Heyes laughed and patted Clay's neck affectionately.

"Heyes," inquired the Kid over the low wall of the neighboring stall, "that was an awful long list of things you might do when you're done studyin'. If you really don't know what you want to do with it, why are you goin' to all that trouble?"

Heyes silently brushed his tall claybank dun gelding, Clay, as if he hadn't heard the question.

The Kid sighed. "You ain't gonna tell me what you really want to do with it."

Heyes sighed in his turn. "I am not," answered the new student steadily, and in his best new grammar. "You'd just laugh at me. You think it's all a joke anyhow, a grown man going to school. You know you do."

The Kid found the image of grown men in school pretty strange, but he didn't want to hurt Heyes by saying it. "I do not! I know college is a good thing, for smart guys like you. I remember our pastor who went to college. He was a good man."

Heyes looked up from curry-combing Clay to look at the Kid. He nodded. "He was. I want to be like that."

The Kid laughed, "You don't want to be a minister, do you?!"

Heyes laughed, too, "No Kid! And no, I won't tell you. If I can really do it, then you'll find out."

"Alright, Heyes, you be that way," muttered the Kid, pausing to lift each of Blackie's hooves one by one to clean each carefully with a hoof pick made a bent nail driven into a carved wood handle. He had to work carefully for a minute to remove a little stone caught near Blackie's hoof wall. When the Kid had the stone out, he put Blackie's hoof back down and patted the horse. He looked up and asked his partner. "You're goin' a long way from Devil's Hole, I guess. But do you keep up anymore? You know – keep in practice. I know you keep up with cards . . ."

"You mean can I use my pick locks? And open safes?"

"Yeah, like that. Can you, anymore?" asked the Kid.

Heyes looked a bit insecure at the question. He didn't have to say anything for the Kid to know that the answer was moving in the direction of "no." After all, what legal and legitimate excuse did Heyes have for practicing lock picking or safe opening?

The Kid guessed, "You must be kinda out of practice, Heyes. Least ways I hope so – you better not be openin' anything in New York!"

"Only the doors of academia, Kid," laughed Heyes with pardonable pride.

"Where do you learn all those fancy college words, Heyes?" asked the Kid, honesty curious.

"Readin' a lot, listening a lot, and puttin' in hard work, Kid." Heyes answered, not wanting to get specific about the embarrassing process of repeating words aloud over and over in any private he could get so he could be sure of saying his new words correctly in company. "I have to work at it. If I'd trip over one of those big words, those Columbia boys would laugh awful loud."

The Kid looked up from currying Blackie. He couldn't miss the bitter edge to Heyes' voice. Heyes had tried make it sound like people laughing at him was something that just might happen. But the Kid knew his partner well – he was sure that it actually had happened. The college boys had laughed at his partner; and it had hurt him badly. The Kid wished he could have been there to throw a punch in his partner's defense. For anyone to laugh at Heyes, when he was fighting back from being shot in the head, was just so wrong. But Heyes wouldn't let it stop him; it probably made him more determined. He had said he could handle those children, and the Kid didn't doubt that he could.

The Kid had to change the subject and get Heyes' mind off the scornful college boys, "Heyes, you got a gal in New York?"

"I've seen a few girls here and there," a wicked smile spread over Heyes' face. Down by the docks there were plenty of girls who would have known the reason for that look.

But Heyes stopped currying the red stripe down Clay's back to look over at the Kid, who was looking back at him with an unusually earnest look in his steady blue eyes and a slight furrow on his otherwise still smooth brow. "I mean a special gal. You know."

"Yeah, I know what you mean, Kid. Like you with Cat." Heyes fell silent for a moment and looked more thoughtful. "No, nobody I got plans with like you got with Cat. She's . . . she's sure a good woman."

Curry grinned a little. He was sure now that Heyes didn't mean that in any way that should worry him. Then he looked serious again. "Yeah, she is, real good. But she's gettin' restless. You know, she'd like something more permanent, more certain. I wish to God I could just ask her to marry me and settle down here. We'd like to maybe have kids. But we still ain't heard a word from the governor and that's been three years. And Cat and I been together for over a year. I mean, she understands about the way things are with us and all, but it bothers her."

Heyes sighed and felt horribly guilty for going back to New York when the Kid and Cat might need him right here to help watch their back. "Yeah, I guess it would have to get to a woman. Not knowing when your man might just have to ride off and not come back would have to . . . bother a woman. Truth to tell, it bothers me, too. I mean, to know I can't settle down with anyone – if I ever found someone I wanted to settle down with, that is. I guess that's one reason I don't have a special gal. What would be the use? Even if we don't wind up in the . . . Wyoming . . . Territorial . . . Prison [all of these words were so unusual in his vocabulary that Heyes had to work at each of them in turn], the money I need for school could go south any time – if I can't do as well as we hope, or if my aphasia kicks up too bad, or if they find out who I am, or maybe just for no reason that I know of. That's what the people in college tell me – you never know when a funder is just going to up and quit on you. I hope I really can trust the guys I'll be asking for money!

And, Kid, the . . . police there have our . . . posters on the wall at the station in New York, big as life. I saw 'em! I just hope that any trouble I get into back there won't come out here and make things . . . hard for you and Cat." Heyes leaned over Clay's back looking into the Kid's eyes seriously. His partner couldn't fail to notice how the pauses in his speech indicated Heyes' concern as they got onto these difficult questions.

The Kid understood. "You ain't going to get into trouble, Heyes! I remember you wakin' me up and tellin' me once that it had been nearly a week that we hadn't been almost arrested. Now it's been over a year, not counting that damn Wilde! He loves to worry me, but he never carries it through. You know he keeps our posters up right in the middle of his wanted wall? He does, damn him, and finds any excuse for me to go in there and look at 'em and sweat! But, yeah, I worry about the same thing – I don't want anybody who nabs me here to get you, too. All this waiting and wondering. It wears on me awful much sometimes, Heyes. Cat and I, we can't really count on anything or anyone – anyone but you."

Heyes gave an ironic bark of a laugh, "And then I go and . . . turn on you! I stay in . . . New York and leave your ass hanging out here. I'm awful sorry Kid! If it gets . . . dangerous, you wire me and I'll be back here as fast as a train can go, you know that!"

The Kid nodded and looked thoughtful. "I know, Heyes. And it works the other way, too. I'll head out to the big city whenever you need me. I'm just glad you've got your friend Jim there, to watch your back. And don't you worry – Cat watches my back real good. You won't need to leave your studies and save me."

Kid saw a look in Heyes' eyes that made him wonder again. "You need a gal with you out there in New York, Heyes. You're makin' me wonder. You ain't taken up with a gal here since Peggy. There is a special gal, back in New York, ain't there, Heyes? Or you there's one you'd like . . ."

The Kid's partner interrupted him with an irritable note in his voice, "I told you, Kid, there's no one . . . special." Heyes found some spot he needed to work hard brushing at on Clay's far side. "I'm working on school, not . . . girls."

"Alright, I guess you better tell her before you tell me. Just like you clammed up about what you were doing, and then we find out you been working for months to get ready to go to college. You just keep it to yourself. For a man who talks so much, sometimes you don't say much at all, Heyes," observed the Kid.

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The Kid woke early on New Year's Day, when the sunlight coming in the hotel window was still pale and grey. He sat up and looked around, unsure what had brought him so suddenly out of a deep sleep. He looked down at Cat and saw that her blue eyes were opened. She looked almost frightened. "Honey," Cat asked in a quiet, tense voice, "did I wake you or did you wake me?"

The Kid smiled apologetically down at where Cat was still keeping warm under the quilt, while his own bare chest sprouted goose bumps in the cold air with no stove going yet. "Well, you know what it usually is." She did know what usually disturbed their sleep; after all the years he and Heyes had spent on the jump from the law and people after them for the bounty, the Kid tended to sleep lightly and to wake easily. He also had occasional nightmares when he flashed back to violent traumas of his criminal past. "At least Heyes is going back to New York where he's safe from bounty hunters and sheriffs and all our old outlaw pals that I got to watch for out here. All he's got to worry about is studyin' hard and getting' good grades. Sounds like a good life to me!" The Kid smiled and kissed Cat. Cat still looked more than a little uneasy, but she got up and hurriedly dressed, to get her skin out of the Colorado cold. It was the day that Heyes was leaving for the East and she needed to fix breakfast for him and for everyone else.

But as Cat dressed and the Kid started to pull on his pants he asked his girl, "Honey it wasn't me was it? It was you. You had one of your dreams didn't you?" The Kid had gotten used to the fact that Cat now and then had vivid and disturbing dreams. She said that the night before the Kid and Heyes had first shown up, she had dreamed about a man being shot in the head, just as Heyes had been, although he hadn't looked like Heyes. And she had dreamed about a bounty hunter the night before a real one showed up. The man in the dream hadn't looked at all like the real man, but the warning had been timely. The Kid was coming to have respect for Cat's strange intuitions.

Cat nodded to the Kid's question. "Well, honey, what was it?" The Kid was putting on a heavy wool sweater that Cat had knitted for him and that came in real handy in the mountain winter.

Cat looked down and away from Curry. "I don't want to tell you – it'll worry you and won't do any good. We can't go around living our lives like my dreams were all real. I don't tell you about the ones that don't come true, and that's most of them, honey."

Curry stopped before putting on his hat. "Cat! What was it? It's bothering you and you'll feel better if you share it."

"No, honey, I really won't. Stop worrying about it. Just deal with real life, alright?" Cat came over and kissed her man.

"Cat, you're as bad as Heyes sometimes. You can't get around me like that. Was your dream about me?" Cat shook her head. "Was it about Heyes." Cat hesitated for a long, awful moment, her eyes getting bigger, and then she nodded. But no matter how the Kid plagued her, she wouldn't tell him what she had seen. In the rush of morning chores, feeding and watering horses and helping Heyes to get his things downstairs, and Heyes saying emotional good-byes all around, the Kid began to forget about Cat's dream. Cat was in the kitchen most of the morning, having plenty to do there.

Cat came out to kiss Heyes good-bye. As he kissed her cheek and smiled and turned to go, she reached out and grabbed his coat. She pulled her man's partner close and this time kissed him right on the mouth, for long enough that every eye the saloon wound up trained on them. As Heyes pulled away to go, he looked at Cat with troubled eyes. He couldn't avoid, now, knowing that she felt something was wrong.

"Good-bye, Honey!" he said, trying unsuccessfully to sound lighthearted and sure of himself. "I'll be back in June, if that's alright with you two. Don't worry about me – just watch out for you and the Kid."

"Good-bye Heyes!" whispered Cat, and then aloud she said, "Come back as soon and as often as you like, Joshua! You're always welcome here! Study hard and get done with school soon! Then come home!"

As Heyes and the Kid walked off to the station, Cat crept out of the door and stood in the cold, shivering although she was wrapped in a wool shawl. She waved to Heyes, although he was so deep in conversation with the Kid that he didn't seem to notice.

As the men, both in their old cowboy gear, vanished around a corner, Cat went back into Christy's Place. She dutifully made sure all of her people, including herself, went back to work. But no matter what she did, she couldn't rid herself of her fear that school wasn't as safe for Heyes as the Kid assumed. She couldn't forget the image in her mind left over from her vivid dream. It was of Heyes, his eyes closed and lips slightly open, lying under something that Cat couldn't identify that blocked out her view of nearly all but his face, as pale as a marble statue. He lay perfectly still, surrounded by a pool of blood.

Was the scene from the past or from the future, or was it a fantasy crafted from her own fears that would never come true? Cat had no way of knowing.

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The End – for the moment. The cycle will continue in: _Two Degrees of Separation_. Sorry that one won't get posted nearly as rapidly as theses first two – I do have work to do for RL. And the next story isn't quite so well finished, yet. Don't jump to conclusions about what the title means. It means a lot of things, actually. I've been really happy to hear from so many readers in the U.S.A. – but I'd love to hear from some of you in other countries. It's exciting to know you are out there! HW


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